#obviously many times of misguided beliefs were there before i like. learned how the world works. now i practice rpf discernment

[romansmartini]

ever since i was a little girl i knew i wanted to speculate about the sexual and romantic undertones of celebrities’ professional relationships

[fuwametal-writes]

Edelgard Working Together with TWSITD Makes Zero Sense

I wouldn't qualify people suffering because of their Crests under the Crest system of nobility as the same thing as suffering under the rule of the Church of Seiros. This is the very reason why I honestly believe that none of Edelgard's actions in terms of conspiring together with TWSITD make sense.

She suffered under the Crest system of nobility and was experimented upon by Those Who Slither in the Dark because the Crest system of nobility allowed cracks and gaps to manifest within Fodlan society where TWSITD were able to thrive, but she never came into contact with the Central Church which Rhea leads until she entered into the Officer's Academy.

For a majority of her life, Rhea and the Church of Seiros were non-entities that were not responsible for any of the tragedies that befell her, and while, through logical thought, one might be able to identify the Church's maintenance of its doctrines as the force responsible for keeping the Crest system alive as the status quo, which in turn created the cracks in society where TWSITD were able to thrive and gain influence from, that still does not mean that they were the parties directly responsible for the suffering that Edelgard has experienced. It thus seems strange for the Adrestian Princess to pin the Church as the party ultimately responsible for her suffering and come to the conclusion that she must first defeat the Church working together with TWSITD, or in other words, her oppressors before dispatching of her oppressors... somehow... later on.

Even if the actions of the Church were responsible for creating the butterfly effect that would eventually lead to her torture, her siblings' deaths, and the downfall of her father's dynasty, it's just strange that even when those who are directly responsible for these atrocities are staring her straight in the face, she still seems to believe that all of these are the ultimate responsibility of the Church, and not as the further result of an even longer-standing conflict caused by none other than those who seem to have no trouble hiding their millennia-old vendetta against the Church.

It is so incongruous for Edelgard to not see how it would be much easier and much more sensible to purge those who slither from the cracks of Fodlan society with the help of the Church and then fill in those cracks with reform so that they can no longer resurface when we know how meticulous and brilliant she is, and especially when we know that she is a mere few steps away from unlocking the truth that Thales and his dead-eyed cronies are pulling a fast one on her. We'll discuss more of that later.

We see over and over again over the course of the story without it ever being shown to us or told explicitly that TWSITD were pulling the strings behind all of the conspiratorial happenings in Fodlan through the underbelly of corruption that has festered over the course of centuries of the Crest system of nobility being in place. This system was created through the influence of the Church in order to establish order following the War of Heroes, but by and large, a lot of the suffering caused by the Crest system is not caused or meted out by the Church, but by those who hold positions of power within the system - people like the nobles of the Insurrection of the Seven who were seduced by the wiles of TWSITD who promised them greater power within the system through their strange means. When we consider this angle, we see that really, Edelgard's anger at the Crest system of nobility is justified, but that her anger at the Church is (and this is important) not wrong, but misguided. I'll explain why.

Rhea formally instituted the Crest system as a way to fill the power vacuum in Fodlan and prevent the continent from falling into chaos again following her victory against Nemesis and the Ten Elites, but remember that the system of ruling over the masses with the power of Crests was not created by Rhea, but by the Agarthans who used Nemesis as a tool to enact genocide upon the Nabateans.

Remember that it was the Agarthans who guided Nemesis and his band of bandits to pillage Sothis's body for the purpose of obtaining the Crest of Flames and the Sword of the Creator, which they then used to wipe out the Nabateans, drink their blood and take their bones, from which they obtained more Crests and Relics with which they could rule tyrannically over the people of Fodlan. With the end of the War of Heroes, Seiros had the opportunity to reveal the truth and abolish the Crest system of power that existed within Fodlan entirely, but she was not in a state of mind to do so, grief-stricken by the death of her mother and the genocide of her kin.

In a cruel, twisted kind of way, the blood running through the veins of her kin's killers and the weapons they fashioned out of the bones of the people that she loved were the only reminders of her family that existed. Therefore, I believe that her decision to instate the Crest system of nobility as the official system of governance in Adrestia through her influence as the head of the Church was motivated by her desire to preserve the vestiges of her kin's memory. To ensure that they don't simply fade into obscurity, and to be able to keep them close to her in a way - even if it is twisted.

I don't know what kind of manipulation Edelgard had to have gone through for her to come to the conclusion that the most effective way to topple TWSITD and their influence over Fodlan was to first eliminate the Church rather than work with them to topple TWSITD and then work with them to enact systemic changes to the way that Church and State interact within the continent to ensure that no one suffers under the dated Crest system (and also possibly go through dialogue to slowly bring to light Fodlan's true history - because obviously, none of that surfaces in the ending of Crimson Flower either).

Edelgard had part of the real history, but clearly, TWSITD cherry-picked the most convenient parts of that history to show Edelgard while obscuring the most inconvenient parts to her such that she would cultivate a vendetta against the Church as the perpetrator behind all suffering in Fodlan when TWSITD are the ones who are truly causing suffering by manipulating local nobles and satellite Church leaders to cause unrest and instability.

Does that justify Rhea's swift execution of heretics? No, of course not, but if Edelgard weren't already so set on her ways in the beginning of the game, she might have been able to gauge by Rhea's reaction to the appearance of the strange mages that she conspired with as the Flame Emperor in the Monastery that the Church was diametrically opposed to the very people that she was conspiring with in the first place for reasons incongruous with what Thales has led her to believe, and that maybe, her anger was misguided... and that she was taking a very, very roundabout way to achieving her goals that would not bear her the full truth of the matter... and maybe even that the Church would gladly help in the purge of TWSITD.

Not that that matters because she wrongly believes that she already has all the answers in her hands, which we know is untrue when we learn the whole truth from Rhea's own mouth in Verdant Wind. TWSITD played Edelgard like a fiddle. They had two main goals, 1) to destroy the Church to exact revenge on Seiros, and 2) to rule the world, and they were able to exploit Edelgard's anger and her ideals as a means to the first one.

This all makes even less sense when you consider that in order for all of this to have come to pass, Edelgard would have had to trust the words of her abusers fully and take their word for what the true history of Fodlan really is... What reason would she have to believe everything that TWSITD had to say about Fodlan's history is true when 1) they were the ones who experimented on her and implanted the Fire Emblem into her, 2) are not working with her in good faith, and 3) it is clear that they are also in the business of hiding even more information from her?

In fact, what reason would she even have to believe everything she said in her speech, particularly these two lines: "The leaders of the church have misused its creed to fulfill their true desire - to rule the world," and "They gathered gold and lived in extravagance," when it would have been plain to her from her months in the Monastery that 1) the Church is largely uninterested in interfering with Empire, Kingdom or Alliance politics except when heresy against the Church is directly involved or in preserving peace from petty bandits where nobles request their aid, 2) she would have seen how far removed from extravagance lifestyle at the Monastery was, and most importantly, 3) she came into contact and interacted with so many students and just... people in general who would have challenged and even shaken those beliefs?

Let's not even stray from point 1 in the previous question that I posed. As I've already said before, her suffering was never directly at the hands of the Central Church because as we see in the game, the Central Church has little influence over the Empire where the Western Church has more influence and because the Empire, unlike the Kingdom and the Alliance, has its very own Ministry of Religion. Even the game's narrative betrays any reason that Edelgard might have had to bear a grudge against the Church in particular and work with the very clearly evil group of shadowy figures because the game goes out of its way to remind us over and over again that the Church has had very little influence over the Empire's religious affairs in recent years - which has led to the rise of heresy within the Western Church, which, since Edelgard was working as the Flame Emperor, she should have known was also the handiwork of TWSITD.

She should have known from spending time in the Monastery that Rhea was less concerned about the loss of influence in the Empire preventing her from levying Church taxes on the Empire and more concerned about the actual heresy against their doctrines that they were committing. More damningly, she should have known that this concern of Rhea to protect the doctrine of the Church was not about maintaining the status quo of the Crest system because what the Western Church was preaching did not undermine the doctrine that Crests and Relics were Sothis's blessings and thus did not jeopardize the Crest system that revered Sothis as Goddess, but rather about maintaining her legitimacy as Archbishop of the Church such that Fodlan could have a unified faith among other reasons that she may have but is not forthright about, as she may have learned if she had taken the time to earn Rhea's trust and learn layers deeper into the truth.

As players, we do know that beyond maintaining her legitimacy as Archbishop, Rhea wanted the people to have a common faith in Sothis because she is still grieving the death of her mother, and that over the centuries, she has almost somehow deluded herself into believing the faith of her own making.

So then, was she fighting for religious freedom? No, because she didn't give a damn about the Western Church either, and because what the Western Church was teaching wasn't reflective of the true history that she apparently wants to bring to light... but never does in the end.

And now, the final nail in the coffin.

The people that Edelgard came into contact with in the Monastery. Let us talk about Marianne and Lysithea, yes?

Marianne bears the Crest of the Beast, and because of that, is visibly disturbed by any discussion of Crests. She has suffered much because of the Crest system and the prying eyes that look on at her and cast suspicion on her. While Edelgard and Marianne do not have supports, surely, she would have seen how Marianne would have reacted to the mere mention of a Crest, and yet all the same, she would have seen how she chooses to believe in the Goddess anyway, and how she did not begrudge the Church, even when it would be very easy to do so as the Church is, after all, responsible for teaching the doctrines that uphold the Crest system. Would this not have cast doubts on the beliefs that she held about the supposed injustice of the Church?

But I concede that Edelgard may not have been paying much attention to Marianne. They barely know each other, after all. It's a shame we don't have someone who experienced basically the exact same thing as her yet didn't begrudge the Church as the reason for her suff-

Wait a minute.

Lysithea von Ordelia. Here is a student that she knows was also experimented upon in the same manner as she was, and yet, she does not begrudge the Church in the same way that she does. Their support conversations are quite heavy, Edelgard trying to reach out to Lysithea as kindred spirits who know exactly how the other feels, and we learn that Lysithea does believe the Crest system and the obsession with the power of the Crests to have been responsible for her and her parents' suffering, but she doesn't speak a lick about the Church. Not to Edelgard, not to Claude, not to Byleth. Why? Because Lysithea has elected that the Church itself was not responsible for her suffering. Plain and simple. It would have been just as easy for Lysithea to also believe that because the Church was the entity responsible for putting the Crest system into place, that they are also ultimately the ones responsible for her suffering just as Edelgard believes... but she doesn't. Would this not have at least made Edelgard question her beliefs even just a bit? Seriously.

And to speak of commonfolk around the Monastery, what does she make of the orphans that the Church takes in? And all of the devotees that the Church extends its mercy and aid to? What did she make of the fact that following Remire, the Monastery took in its orphans and its survivors? Seriously.

What of the Almyran boy that Rhea treats equitably just like any Fodlani person that she holds audience for? What of Cyril? Does she see Rhea's kindness to the boy and how this boy is grateful for saving her from a life of indentured servitude and think that it is insincere?

Would any of these encounters with the people in the Monastery not have allowed her even a little leeway to question her alliance with TWSITD?

Don't you think that it would make more sense for Edelgard to also be mistrustful of TWSITD enough to want to learn more about the Church and the history that underlies them to verify the veracity of her cause before deciding who to confide her motivations in fully, acting as a double agent with the side that wins her over with the truth to win peace and carve out her destiny in her own terms, free from the shackles of those who would keep her in line for their own ends?

It just seems so asinine to me to see Edelgard playing right into TWSITD's hands and it frustrates me to no end seeing how IntSys made such a chump of Edelgard when she's such a good character. I will never let IntSys live this down. Edelgard working with TWSITD makes zero sense. Try as you might to change my mind as to why Edelgard siding with TWSITD and declaring war on the Church was necessary, but know that if you do, I have barely even scratched the surface and I will have an answer ready for you. It's sloppy writing on IntSys's part and Edelgard deserves better.

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of June 5th, 2019

Best of this Week: Justice League #25 - Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Jorge Jimenez, Alejandro Sanchez and Tom Napolitano

The Year of the Villain is upon us.

The book begins with Clark in his youth, impatient and wanting to solve all of his problems by using his power, but being told to be patient by Pa Kent. Cutting to the future where he and Jon can’t light a lamp in Pa Kent’s honor, he’s drenched in rain under the cover of night. In the present an emaciated Superman floats through the Sixth Dimension in total darkness, left there by the glistening White Superman of the Utopia created by the World Forger.

Elsewhere, the League fights their future selves in an amazing action sequence by Jimenez and Sanchez. The clashing of ideals is in full force as these perfect beings from different eras fight each other for the future. Our Justice League fights with the fury of youth, uncompromising in their belief that a future where the lives of billions are lost in order to achieve justice is no future at all. The Future League, however, with their vast experience and tainted souls fight with  certainty, knowing that their world has no pain or injustice.

Their battle is captured excellently through sheer scale and intensity as the book rumbles on. Wonder Woman knows what she’s capable of taking and throws down on her older self with punches and kicks befitting a warrior with the heavy impacts to match. Lantern Stewart has an architectural mind, but his older self has obviously come across bigger, but doesn’t count on the flash decking him right in the mouth. The Flash himself doesn’t see it coming when he catches a flurry from himself and who I believe to be Wally and Bart as they phase in and out of existence.

Martian Manhunter uses his shapeshifting abilities to become something out of any Kaiju movie as he tears through the city and himself. Batman… dear God Batman and his beautiful Bat-Mech. The machine is over designed with sharp edges, a bright white color scheme with a gold Bat logo and big dumb Bat wings, but it is AMAZING to look at. Appearing to be on the side of the World Forger, he tells the team to see the Light, telling them to listen to his words and imagine light as they get beat down by their future selves.

Back in the Sixth Dimension, Batman thinks back to the light ceremony and how the League was there to help him and Jon and suddenly lights begin to appear, not just any lights… suns. In what may be one of the greatest sequence of pages in the last few issues of Justice League, (and there have been some great ones) Superman is reenergized. He dives through one sun and then another and another, regaining the hope and strength that he is so known for and rushes towards his friends,

The World Forger readies his hammer to strike this future reality into existence until he feels the vibration. He tells Future Lois Lane to shoot it down, but she sees the “S” and begins to cry. Flash sees him, Diana, J’onn and especially Bruce as Superman RAGES INTO THE BATTLE AND WITH A SINGLE, WORLD EXPLODING, PUNCH puts and end to the World Forger’s machinations.

Instead of destroying the World Forger in that instant, he extends his hand, telling him that there is another way to save the Multiverse if he joins the Justice League. Batman had his suspicions of the future the whole time and upon learning of Superman’s fate, decided to give him a chance to find his way back to his friends and if he didn’t then the Utopia was meant to be, but he always knew that Clark would find a way. Clark focused on hope and the happy memories. He knew that there was always another way and that the World Forger’s ideas that there was only one path or a few that involved him fighting against the Justice League were misguided and that there was one he hadn’t considered; joining them.

Before jumping into the latter 1/3rd of the book, I have to praise this book for having such a satisfying conclusion to this arc. I love that the League didn’t just have to vanquish another threat, but gained a new ally in their fight against the coming Doom. The art was amazingly frenetic and bright with the colors popping in ways that made everything all the more epic and badass. Shading and detailing made everything seem so much more inspiring and dire at times, which is exactly what this needed with special praise going to the single splash page of Superman roaring his arm back for a Real Superman Punch.

Things finally coalesce with the second story of this issue written by James Tynion IV and drawn by new series regular artist, Javier Fernandez. Paying off the events of the Year of the Villain One-Shot, Lex Luthor has made his plea to the people of Earth. After the Legion of Doom saves the world from a raging Mxypytlk, Lex tells them what a mess of things the Justice League made of the Source Wall. He encourages the citizens of the world to shun the League and become Villains just like him as it’s the only way to save themselves since the heroes obviously can’t.

The people are listening and have already started rioting in the streets. Unlike in The Last Knight on Earth, the League has hope. The World Forger hopes to gain the aid of his brothers, the Monitor and the Anti-Monitor. Starman hopes to gain the aid of other heroes from the Multiverse. Wonder Woman wishes to stay on Earth and utilize the Largest League that there has ever been and J’onn says that they have to do it all. At the same time, after his supposed Death, Lex brings himself back to life in a strange body, saying that Doom is just beginning.

I have never been more excited for Justice League than I am now, especially given how widespread this story will be. There are hints of the same kind of scale as Jonathan Hickman’s run on Avengers, with every small thing in every tangential book affecting some part of the larger narrative and that’s the kind of storytelling that I adore. Offers are going to be going out to every villain in the DC Universe and things are only going to be more intense from here on out and I am here for it.

HIGH Recommend.

---------------------------------------------------

Slade Wilson is dead.

Runner Up: Deathstroke: R.I.P. #44 - Christopher Priest, Fernando Pasarin, Ryan Winn, Jeremy Cox and Willie Schubert

With a large crowd of mourners, we get an idea of how respected and reviled the Terminator was in the larger DC Universe, or at the very least, in the realm of villainous circles. Talia al Ghul bids him farewell and says that he will be welcomed in hell. Red Lion, Priests pastiche of Black Panther, pays his respects to “de ultimate wheelon.” Raptor, Killer Frost and Deadshot all show up to pay respects, with Deadshot saying that he always thought he'd be the one to take Wilson out and how he feels cheated.

Dr. Ikon, who was put into a coma by Jericho and subsequently hunted by Slade for daring to have a relationship with his son shows up and wishes Slade had at least given him his eye back. Even his ex-wife, Adeline Kane cries as she views the funeral, damming him for dying even after all of mess they've put each other through.

The Legion of Doom appears and tries to assert their dominance over the crowd, but remain calm as Sinestro remarks that Deathstroke was one of the few that could legitimately stand with the group as he analyzes the body.

Superman, who Deathstroke fought all the way back in issue #8, appears above the proceedings to make sure that everything stays cordial amongst the many attendees. Meanwhile, Jericho, angry that his father's even getting a funeral, tries to goad Superman into bringing all of the villains in attendance down, but Superman disagrees. He says that no one is committing and crime and the boy just gets angrier.

At the Titan's base, Red Arrow tries to comfort Damian, telling him that Deathstroke's death wasn't his fault and that even though Damian wanted him dead, Emiko had to be the one to loose the arrow. Unbeknownst to either, Jericho takes over Emiko's body and attacks Damian, cursing them for killing Deathstroke before taking over Kid Flash's body soon after.

For the entirety of this run, we've seen how negative Slade and Jericho's relationship is. Jericho hates his father and that has poisoned his entire life. Knowing he's being mourned pisses off the former Titan, but hearing that another Titan was the one that killed him sends him into a rage. It's similar to his heel turn in Geoff Johns spectacular Teen Titans run in the mid 2000s where he didn't want more kids to suffer, but this time he's the one suffering.

At the same time, Rose Wilson attacks people dressing up as her father as his face is shown all over screens in a city and Detective Gordon tells her that Slade wouldn't have wanted her to follow in his footsteps as he was told by Wintergreen, echoing the most early issues of Deathstroke, like #4 - #5 I believe

.continuing his rage, Jericho, in Kid Flash's body attacks Sinestro, who uses his Ultraviolet ring to tap into Jericho's repressed emotions and fires upon the crowd. Doctor Light reveals that Superman was just a projection and disables Jericho and the Legion ponders what to do with the boy. With Deathstroke dead, the Legion makes their first Offer for Year of the Villain and gives him a chance to join them and with his current mental state, who's to say that he won't?

Deathstroke has been a weird and convoluted ride at times, but the character work herein has been phenomenal. We've seen the root causes of what makes Deathstroke himself so poisonous and how that's affected his children.

Jericho wears the mask of a hero, but underneath, he's scarred. He nearly kills a man he loves on the off chance that he may tell Slade of it, causing Slade to hunt him and now he himself is falling to the dark side.

Rose has always straddled the line, but her father kept her on the side of good at least by discouraging her from being him. Her anger at his death may drag her into the same pit as Jericho, especially after trying to solve the mental break she had, thinking she was overcome with the Spirit of a Hmong warrior.

There's going to be a war to determine who the next Deathstroke will be and if that doesn't excite everyone, I don't know what to say other than High recommend.

[zephi-dreams]

alright i’m barely even coherent enough to type down my thoughts after 5 hours of sleep and an episode of hyperventilating and sobbing but let’s fucking do this

let’s start with this: this is the canon ending we have. you can choose to love it, hate it or be neutral. just respect other’s opinions on it and don’t harass anyone. and please know that the team behind voltron worked hours, weeks, months, to years on this show. 

now let’s get down to business to defeat the huns

i’m sure lance, allura and allurance stans can agree they both deserved better. now allurance may not have been my ideal endgame (if you can call it that), but it was still cute. i saw it coming, we all kinda did. lance has grown and matured enough as a person, and allura saw that at least. so i am pleased with what we got with them. the date, the kiss, the cuddling and lance’s genuine care and worry for allura really made me like what they had while it lasted. 

also rip to any other shippers out there, especially to the plance and sheith shippers out there, as a plance and sheith shipper myself i mourn with you. but remember, not everything has to be canon in order for you to love it. 

now i think we should really get to business. 

allura deserved so much better. she was someone who had thing taken from her: her family, her planet, her entire race, her crown and finally her own life. and she accepted that. which is unfair beyond belief, she deserves to be happy with the rest of the paladins. but after bingeing the past seasons, there were many times where allura would attempt to do things for the greater good, even if it cost her life. it felt obvious in the end. does that mean i agree with it? no. does that mean i didn’t bawl at 8am? absolutely not. i may be brain dead at the moment, but i can’t think of another way to restore every reality imaginable, to let other characters live. in the end she was able to bring life back to destroyed planets, at the cost of her own. 

each goodbye she said to the paladins ripped my heart out, what hurts me most that she couldn’t say one to coran, her second father. the man who helped raised her didn’t even get to say goodbye.

now my theory about lance becoming altean(?) is that it was obviously a gift to him, to remember her bye. does that mean he has altean powers now? idk. we don’t get an explanation other than his marking glow when the voltron lions fly off. i’ve seen someone say it could be a soulmate mark and it glows when allura’s presence is near?? i like that idea

also what was with the lions?? why did they fly off? did they pick up some energy and that’s why they were flying towards the shape of allura in space? or were they flying away because they were no longer needed to protect the universe?? or it was used as a dramatic effect to send off the series. i really hope to get some answers

ok but it all honestly, for voltron to have a m/m kiss is pretty big. i’m happy shiro found true happiness, but i’m obviously disappointed it wasn’t keith, aka, his best friend, the man who was literally the closest person to him. i mean curtis is okay, he cute i guess. but he’s literally some random dude that shiro knew only for a year, and we didn’t see that development besides curtis cheering him on at the arm wrestling competition and then boom! wedding. keith knew him for years, and you can’t just forget about their relationship like that. 

i’m pleased to know for sure lotor was severely misguided, and his true intention was to help people. but the years of abuse finally made him snap, and he suffered. he looked happy to see his mother, and his real father on the other side. also let’s mention that lotor’s corpse was still inside the sincline and it was decomposing YIKES. AND MY THEORY ABOUT THE CORRUPTED QUINTESSENCE IN HIS VEINS WAS RIGHT I CAN BE HAPPY ABOUT THAT AT LEAST!

alright now for some stuff that hasn’t really been talked about

let me gush about pidge and the holts in general because it’s mandatory. pidge was willing to give up a super rare video game to dress allura up, and to make lance happy. SHE WAS HEARTBROKEN BY THE DESTRUCTION OF OLKARION, SHE APPRECIATED WHAT RYNER TAUGHT HER SO MUCH!!! SHE COULD SE THROUGH TIME YO!! pidge moved on from her glasses.. giving them to her robot chip to show that her character arc is finally done, how much she’s grown. god THAT SHIT HURTED. colleen and pidge are literally me and my own mother and i love them. matt with a pony tail is amazing, and short hair matt ain’t half bad yo. sam holt still continues to be a legend

HUNK GOT THE BEST OF THIS SEASON LET’S BE REAL. HE WAS AN ICON THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE THING

og paladins?? zarkon realizing what he did?? holy shit

there was like... nothing of keith and shiro. so rip sheith again

kosmo got REALLY FUCKING BIG

and once again, allura deserved all the happiness in the world

(12/15) EDIT

i got some more stuff

again, allura deserved better and didn’t even need to die. yeah, with her gaining access to oriande and saying “i need to learn the secrets of life. i give my own.” was a hint to her death. even if we got the open ambiguous ending with shiro and keith, allura would’ve died anyway. i feel that was inevitable with all the build up with her attempted sacrifices before. but what doesn’t make sense about it and why it wasn’t needed, is that honerva also gained access to oriande, she would’ve learned just as much as allura. so allura dying with honerva is unnecessary. honerva could’ve just died alone to bring back every reality without allura. it could’ve been avoidable, so yeah it’s unfair.

also i fully believe lance ain’t altean, the marks are just a reminder of allura. it’s practically a scar for him to remember her, and they glow when her presence is around. i feel he won’t be able to fully move on from that, and it’s just cruel to have him emotionally suffer like that. tbh i also don’t think it’s wrong for lance to be a farmer, he already knew how to milk a cow so? i guess some of his family were involved with a farm in the first place idk.

the very final image with allura space i think is the reference to the cosmic dust, and how they are all connected in a way. still don’t know why the lions left their paladins on altea just to fly into space but go off i guess

pidge gave up her own happiness for allurance’s, pidge really out there supporting allurance. also i will always believe pidge had a crush on lance and swallowed it down in order to make someone else happy and that’s that. rip plance but it’s still in my heart

also bi veronica and lesbian acxa own my soul thanks

ryan kinkade?? a true director, everyone loves him.

i hope hunay may have gotten together post canon so i have that but rip team punk but i always saw them more as a brotp

like sheith was literally forgotten about... all of what they meant to each other just disappeared and it was bs. i could go on but i don’t wanna get more upset.

in conclusion: sheith and allurance deserved better, allura deserved better in general, so did lance, basically everyone deserved better in this season. many writers left after s6 because they didn’t agree with what dreamworks wanted to do with the show and that’s why it’s so messy. the staff had their hands tied. thanks for coming to my ted talk.

so. wow that’s it huh? that’s the last premiere of voltron i can rant about. well, it’s been one hell of a ride, folks.

[elliepassmore]

Heir of Fire Review

5/5 stars Recommended for people who like: fantasy, magic, Fae, training montages, brewing rebellion, enemies-to-friends,Throne of Glass, strong female leads, multiple POVs I'll admit right now that Heir is my favorite book in the series, followed closely by Blade. I'm pretty sure this is the one I've reread the most, so I've pretty much have it memorized at this point (it's also the only one I also have in German, even if I haven't read that edition yet). Just, be prepared for lots of 'I love's. Keep in mind, the reveal from the ending of Crown of Midnight is going to be addressed in this review, so be warned. I love that, like in Blade, we get to see more of the world ToG is set in. Celaena goes to Wendlyn and hangs out in the mortal capital city, Varese, for a little bit. During the brief bit of time she's there, we get an understanding that it's a hot city that's pretty similar to Rifthold, only without the history of oppression and fear (read: it and its people are a lot happier). We also get a nicely painted picture of the misty, tree-covered valleys and mountain sides as well as some of the fishing towns. Mistward, the fortress she trains at, seems like it would be an awesome vacation spot if it weren't so close to Maeve, and that was honestly what I thought about most of the time when I deemed to analyze it. One place I definitely wish we got to see more of, but understand why we don't because of plot reasons, was Doranelle, the Fae capital city. Maas painted it as a city island of stone and water. The way she stone and the palace was described makes me think a little of how Ahdieh describes the palace in Wrath and the Dawn, while the waterways make me think of a more magical Venice. The monsters and creatures throughout the realm were also pretty cool and seemed to have well-developed lore. In terms of character development, I love Chaol in this one. If you've read my other reviews, you know I'm not the biggest fan of his character or his relationship(s) with other people. However, we get to see him questioning things he knows, questioning what he thinks he knows, and even getting questioned by other people. Dorian flat out calls him out on his beliefs regarding magic and gives one of the best (and I think one of the most quoted) lines of the series: "You cannot get to pick and chose which parts of her to love" (344). Aedion also questions Chaol's beliefs, pointing out that Chaol is avoiding choosing a side and still has a bit of that blind obedience going through him. Both of those instances, combined with some of the other stuff Chaol learns and sees in this book really helps him start to question what the fuck he's been doing these past ten years and the man he's been serving. Chaol actually starts becoming a likable character in this one, despite his lingering prejudices about magic and even some reservations. This is definitely peak Chaol, at least until we reach Tower of Dawn. Another character who goes through a big change is Celaena. She starts of as Celaena, the assassin, and is dragged to see Maeve where, for the first time in the book, she is instead addressed as Aelin, the princess. Rowan, the person assigned to train her, calls her Aelin throughout the book, but you can tell there's a division in her, not just because of the way she feels and acts and what she says, but because of what she calls herself when it's her 'turn' to narrate. Rowan calls her Aelin, but she still calls herself Celaena. There's a lot of rage and desperation and fear in her, from her far- and recent-past, and it runs her. She's obviously depressed for most of the book, something that Maas wrote wonderfully and portrayed as something human and real and painful. That's the mindset she starts in, and we see her descend further into it before rising back up, but it takes a while.

During that time, it's clear she still has some hope, still has some sense that she wants to live for something, again because of her name. Rowan calls her Aelin, she calls herself Celaena, but she has the other demi-Fae living and training at Mistward call her Elentiya, Nehemia's name for 'spirit who cannot be broken.' Names mean something to her (and to the other characters, they are a motif throughout the book that I could probably write an entirely separate review on), and they signal where she is in her journey. From an arc perspective, Aelin struggles and fights and becomes, and by the time the book is over, it really does feel like Celaena and Aelin are two completely separate people. As a bonus, we get a lot of background information about Celaena/Aelin and SO MANY Easter eggs. As a side note, not really related to character development, but this is the first time since ToG when I felt that when Celaena/Aelin got beaten in a fight it was an actual testament of the other person's skill rather than Celaena/Aelin getting watered down a bit (not counting when she was poisoned in the duel w/ Cain). In Blade, we saw her strength and abilities, and then in ToG and CoM, they were kind of a let down and I felt she got beaten too easily, but here it feels more like an even show of power like it would've been in Blade.

I felt Dorian was a more stagnant character during this book. He slowly worked on his powers and tried to hide them, but for the most part he was shut out of the scheming and major events that were occurring in the book. That's not to say he doesn't have an arc, he does, I just think it was mostly set up and completed in the first two books, with this one serving as the conclusion for his Part 1 arc (in terms of development, ToG is pretty evenly split with Part 1 arcs going from ToG to this one and part 2 arcs going from QoS to the end, with both parts serving the overarching Arc for each character). Dorian really feels like he could become king in this one, with the way he talks and the decisions he makes, especially regarding things he doesn't 100% understand or get. Though, to be honest, he's always been the character out of Celaena, Chaol, and him that handles big reveals and twists best. Anyway, his behavior has markedly matured, even when it comes to his romantic relationships. We saw that he was mopey in ToG and even parts of CoM after the whole thing with Celaena went down, and how he was willing to give frivolous gifts, but here we see a shift to him understanding, or at least starting to understand, why certain things occurred the way they did as well as a shift toward him working more seriously when in a romantic relationship. He's also quicker to disavow the king and what he's doing than Chaol is, which is both unexpected and probably difficult. But like I said, these changes are subtle and small compared to the changes in the other characters, which is why I called his arc mostly-stagnant, even if I like his character. Manon is an awesome character. I think I tended to skip her chapters the first time I read this book, but ended up really liking them in Queen, so I started paying attention during my rereads. I think my main issue with her was that she was new and didn't have a connection to the other, already established characters, because she's a really bad ass character. She's an Ironteeth Witch, like Baba Yellowlegs, only she's colder and more hardcore. Manon is brutal and beautiful and dangerous and knows it. More than that, she knows how to use it to her advantage. Every move is about clawing her way up and eventually getting back to the Witchlands (now known as the Western Wastes). Manon has some stunning development in this book, going from cruel and cunning and uncaring to cruel and cunning and caring a little. I like how her relationship and leadership roles within the Thirteen was established, and enjoy the power-house that group is. I also really like her dedication to getting Abraxos up and in the air. In terms of who mirrors Manon, I think it's Abraxos. No one really thinks Manon is the underdog, but their similarities throughout this book and the rest of the series are, I think, probably too many to be coincidental (or they are and it just works out really well). Aedion Ashryver is a fun addition to this book. Cousin to Aelin, he too has been serving the king for the past however-many-years. He's a lot like Aelin, only more male and with a different kind of darkness. Where Aelin's darkness is quick and wicked, Aedion's feels slower and honey-like. Either way, I thought he was a funny character and it was nice to get up close and personal with someone who has been actively working against the king for some time (and who has narration). He can be a bit misguided re: Aelin at times, but his heart's in the right place and it's obvious he not only cares for her but for his country. Can't really say much about character arc here, since I think his comes more in Part 2, but I have really liked his character since the first read-through. Rowan's another good addition, even if I hated him the first time I read the book. He's a mirror to Aelin mentally and developmentally, similar to how Aedion is Aelin's mirror physically. Both Aelin and Rowan are in dark places when they meet and they both have to deal with hauling themselves out of that space during the book. Rowan's brutal, but once Aelin (and we as an audience) warm up to him a little, he's a much better character. He's not the sadistic bastard someone (I think it was Luca) claims him to be, again, once you get to know him, he seems downright playful. He opens up to Aelin and begins his own ascent from darkness, and I think that comes through in the moments when he is playful, when he is caring, when he does look out for the people around him. I think he has the bond with Maeve weighing pretty heavily on him, and I have to wonder if some of his coldness and distance isn't because he doesn't want to get close to someone and have that taken away by Maeve, either directly or indirectly. I also think he's seeing Celaena grow into Aelin and realizing that Maeve is not the kind of person she should be, not the kind of person Rowan really believes in. Some other characters of note include Sorcha, who has a pretty good (and then a pretty bad) twist in her story. I liked her interactions and relationship with Dorian, I thought they were cute together. Emrys is another good one. He's a demi-Fae who works in the kitchens and is the story-teller at Mistward. He proves to be a good friend and ally to Aelin, as well as a god catalyst for Rowan. I wish we got to see more of him and Malakai (his mate) together. Luca was cute, sort of like a chattery younger brother type. The Cadre were intriguing, even if we didn't get much of them. Ren and Murtaugh we met in Crown and we see again here. I like Murtaugh and I like his and Ren's relationship, but I don't like Ren (at least until a bit later). I love the Thirteen and their loyalty, and I can't wait until I can talk about them more in the next review. Overall (obviously), I like the book. I think there's some great character, world, and plot development going on here that incorporates previous things and brings in new ones. I know ToG is a cohesive series, but, as mentioned a bit above, I tend to think of it in parts, and Heir closes out Part 1, both plot-wise and in terms of character development. I think this book rivals Blade for how many hints and clues about future things/events were dropped. So, five years later and it's still my fave.

[izanyas]

and the calm is deep where the quiet waters flow (10)

Rating: M Words: 7,300 No warnings.

[Read from prologue]

and the calm is deep where the quiet waters flow Chapter 10

Wei Wuxian had not experienced fever in years.

He couldn't count those years he spent dead among them. What few fleeting impressions of afterline had lingered upon resuscitation were long gone, wiped from his mind like dust swept from wood. Those memories were not his to preserve now that he was back to life; that peace was the dead's hard-earned reward, and who knew how far away he was now from earning it again.

If he earned it. The longer he spent in Mo Xuanyu's body, the more he felt his frustration dissipate in favor of pity, but the envy… this, he couldn't be rid of.

Heat caught up with him only two days out of Mo village. Wei Wuxian traveled on the back of the mean donkey he stole there, avoiding broader roads and any sign of towns or villages. He had no idea which way to go or even what to do, but he went. He had never been one to sit still and simmer; his one experience of building a home for himself had only made him feel more alienated and out of touch with his own body. It was on that same donkey's back that he first felt pain force his body to bend and his throat to constrict over moans, and he only had the presence of mind to lead the creature as deep into the forest as he could before it fully overtook him. He found a cave at the edge of a deep-set river, somewhere wind and water should work to mask his scent, and climbed down against the rocks till he could finally collapse.

For years before he died, Wei Wuxian had refused heat. Much of his research in Yiling had been spent in the company of Wen Qing, trying to figure out how to grow the white flowers that moonless tea were made of on a soil so sullied with death. It was for the sake of many, he told her; Wen Qing looked at him in silence and acquiesced, though he knew—she knew, oh, she knew—why he cared so much.

The seeds never took to Yiling's deadened earth. They had to compromise by growing them in the grotto that Wei Wuxian inhabited, in clay pots wide enough for grown men to sit in. Wei Wuxian had not experienced heat since Yunmeng had burned. He had promised himself, months after the end of the war, that he never would again.

More than the sharp pain that Mo Xuanyu's body experienced, more, even, than the discomfort of sweat and slickness he had so loathed as a child in that empty shack in Yunmeng, Wei Wuxian was overwhelmed by fear.

For three days he didn't sleep. He forced his body upright in the farthest corner of the damp cave, heedless of the river sometimes spilling in over smooth rock and licking at his cold feet. He kept watch over the entrance as the sun set and rose, clutching his stomach with one hand and a large stone with the other.

He wished he had a sword.

He lit no fire. He ate and drank nothing. Mo Xuanyu must have some sort of cultivation training, for his body was sturdy enough for two days of inedia. Wei Wuxian meditated during those as he shivered and shook, eyes never leaving the arc-like opening of the cave, ready to attack whoever dared to look in.

No one did.

Mo Xuanyu's cycle was a short one. It was more intense than what Wei Wuxian remembered of his own—his had lingered in discomfort and silence for days, thick and drowsy, panic smoothing over his heart and limbs during the long hours of night—but when the third day died in pink light and cool wind, he stopped shivering. His hold relaxed on the black stone. He licked his parched lips amidst halted, hollow gasps, and crawled to the edge of the riverbed to finally quench his thirst.

He was surprised to find the stolen donkey grazing the grass above, completely unbothered. Wei Wuxian had not taken the time to tie it somewhere, not knowing how long he would be out of it and whether the creature would be able to feed itself, but it seemed this part of the forest was good enough. The animal barely reacted to seeing him climb back to ground level.

With somewhat weak hands, Wei Wuxian picked berries from low bushes to feed on. He had no bow on him to hunt for birds or deer. After he found moonless tea and some sort of scent-masking drug somewhere, acquiring one would be his first order of business.

He hated how shaken he was when he mounted the donkey again to go on his way, but he pushed through. He always did.

Keeping to wilder paths was enough to stay fed for the next few days. He found a house about a week after leaving Mo village, empty of its inhabitants though obviously not abandoned. He felt only minimal guilt upon breaking open the door and raiding part of their pantry. A few slices of dried meat to chew on, clean clothes, a kitchen knife. The worst of the three bows lined by the back door, and a handful of arrows. He hesitated when his nose picked up the faint trace of sweetscent; he found ink and paper on a table by the corner, and wrote a curt note of apology to whichever omega lived there.

The next day, he arrived at a bigger town right by the side of a tall mountain. The people of Dafan walked subduedly through the streets, murmuring to each other by the shadow of alleyways. Wei Wuxian had not meant to venture so close to them; but too many times did he cross paths with small-sect cultivators on his way through the forest, all of whom only gave him short glances of curiosity but not a word of scorn.

He had never been very good at resisting curiosity.

The Lan boys' words already seemed so far away from him. After days of traveling alone, it was easy to think himself back to his own time and be wary of any stranger who could stumble upon him—easy to forget what he had learned and disbelieved in Mo village, what he had seen in the person of Lan Jingyi.

But it was true. All of it was true.

Not just the relative peace he was left in, despite painting to all who looked the picture of a lone omega traveling unchaperoned. Not even the sight of several omega working at stalls or simply walking through the streets. But cultivators were gathered all around for a night hunt of some kind, small clan banners held high as they muttered among themselves, and though Wei Wuxian didn't catch scent of another of his kind among them, they hardly noticed him as well. Some threw dark looks his way, but that was all.

Looks.

He sold some of the game he had caught the day before to pay for a proper meal and bath at the nearest inn. Once more, the tenants only seemed mildly displeased to have to serve him; they even fetched a young omega girl to show him to a different part of the establishment, where a bathroom stood smothered in the sweet scent of others. Wei Wuxian washed the sweat and blood off of his skin and wondered, apprehension heavy in his chest, what could have possibly happened to make the world change so.

He opened the door of the room too harshly; the girl from earlier who stood on the other side let out a breath of surprise and clutched the fabric of her apron tightly.

"Sorry," he said blankly.

She shook her head. "No, young master, I'm sorry. I should have made my presence known."

He stared at her for a long while.

She was obviously omega, though her scent was so mild as to be almost forgotten. Cooler than it was sweet—closer to beta than her true status. He couldn't even point out what it was she smelled like with any exactitude.

"Um," she started again, visibly bothered by his scrutiny. "I have, um, medicine. If you wish."

Wei Wuxian stayed silent for another second before answering, "What sort of medicine?"

"You know," she blushed. "That—that sort of medicine. You, um, your scent is… I fear—well. It's not proper like this."

He had absolutely no idea what she was talking about.

She seemed to understand it well enough. She touched his arm timidly—taking her hand back when he shook it off without thinking—and asked, "Were you… were you raised in a house?"

"You mean in an omega house," he said.

Her face turned even redder. With surprise, he understood that it was due to anger more than embarrassment. "Please follow me," she urged him in a low voice.

He agreed easily enough. It wasn't as though he had anything better to do.

The girl took him to another room neighboring the one where he bathed, ushering him inside with more deference than he felt was deserved and quickly lighting candles all around. It was a cold little place, clean to a fault and covered with shelves upon shelves of flasks and vials full of dried leaves and viscous, mud-like medicine.

"This is moonless tea," she told him uselessly—he would recognize the smell and appearance of all of these drugs in pure darkness. After all, he had prepared them himself often enough. "And this is to mask your scent."

"How do you have all this?" he couldn't help but ask.

There was misguided pity in her eyes when she answered. "Sometimes we get people like you who were still raised in houses. Lots of families disobey the law, young master—it's unfair," she added in sudden rage, "but I can help you mask your scent. Out here it is considered more polite to be… discreet."

Discretion had never been one of Wei Wuxian's strengths, but in this case, he supposed that it suited his goals.

The girl was obviously acting under the belief that he had spent his life in isolation and recently run away. He felt no need to dissuade her of the idea; instead he played the part to his best, asking questions here and there and trying his best not to show how world-shattering her answers were.

Ten years. For ten years now, she said, the greater cultivation sects had abolished omega houses and dealt harsh punishment onto those who were found to follow tradition.

How? Why?

He took the medicine from her without bothering to ask. He doubted she would know. But his mind ran amok with guesses all more unbelievable than the next as he drank the familiar tea and spread bitter paste over his tongue. It wasn't the kind that Wen Qing and Wen Ning had used to outright cheat their status, but rather something else, something that turned the smell of him as watery and faint as the girl's own.

Wei Wuxian had never used scent masking in his first life. It would have been useless to him even if the whole world hadn't known who and what he was; after all, after losing his core, he had smelled of nothing at all.

He still hadn't grown used the brightness and weight of Mo Xuanyu's undamaged spirituality. He feared the thought of ever using it—this untrained, untouched thing in his chest, small and shining and unbearably warm. Resentful energy was so much more familiar, so much easier to trust and reach for. He needn't spend years training from scratch again for it.

It seemed to him that he could hear the sound of Lan Wangji's voice belittling him all those years ago: The dark path damages the heart and spirit, Wei Ying.

He snorted faintly. The Lan sect heir had too often tried to meddle with his business in those years. He was glad to have escaped Mo village before having to face him—he doubted the man's opinion of him had grown any warmer after what had transpired in Nightless City.

His heart ached. Wei Wuxian chased the memory quickly.

Fewer looks were thrown his way when he left the inn a while later. What little money he had gathered from hunting was gone again, but he still had the stolen bow, and now enough reserves of medicine to last him for a while. Darkness crept over the sky as nighttime approached, and the streets were now almost full to bursting with cultivators. Some even held evil-targeting compasses like the ones he had once created.

The hypocrisy grated at him. It made him want to slap the devices out of their hands and break them before their eyes until they felt a third of the frustration that he did.

Wei Wuxian mounted the donkey again and headed for the mountain. He saw many more people that way, all obviously gathered to hunt for a big enough prize. The girl at the inn had mentioned to him the stories of people losing their souls since a landslide not long ago had unearthed tombs on the softer mountain grounds. He had no interest in any of it.

Or at least he did not, until he saw the silhouette of a man sitting on a wide root and looking emptily at the dirt road. He held a lamp in his hands, the glow of which shone only over his rich clothes. Not anywhere on the vegetation around or the ground under his feet.

The back of his skull was blown open.

"Hello," the ghost said to him.

"Good evening," Wei Wuxian answered, tugging on the donkey's reins to slow its pace. "Crowded tonight, isn't it?"

The ghost ignored his question. He looked at his bare fingers, rubbing them with his thumbs, and said, "I need my rings. I need to find my rings."

This one would be easy enough to exorcize and send back to the realm of the dead, Wei Wuxian thought, as long as one found the riches which must have been stolen from his tomb. He found himself hoping that someone would.

Ghost lights and spirit lures hung from many trees around. The forest was thick enough to mask most of the stars overhead, but still everything around glowed oddly. Wei Wuxian could see just fine in the darkness, as if night hadn't fallen at all. The soul-stealing monster they were all hunting must truly be worth a lot.

He didn't know where to go.

The thought simmered at the back of his mind as he slowly rode along the mountainside. He was alive, he was free of Mo Xuanyu's wishes, he was in the possession of a brand new body only a handful of years older than his had been when he died. Now what, he kept wondering. What did he do with it? Did he go somewhere no one knew him and settle down until his days were over once more? Did he forget his name and past and simply wait?

He had never learned any way to live that wasn't linked with cultivation, but he could not come back to it. Yearn as he did to return to Yunmeng and fall asleep in the bed which had cradled his childhood, this dream was an impossible one. The perspective alone crushed his heart with misery.

He was thinking such thoughts when his path once more crossed that of a group of cultivators. They were three with compasses in hand, muttering among themselves, heedless of his coming. "Useless thing," the oldest of them said, shaking his compass. "The old ways are the only viable ones."

"This is the Yiling Patriarch's invention you are talking about," his companion replied. "When have they ever failed us?"

"Because it is the Yiling Patriarch's invention, we should never have started using it in the first place."

And so on and on they argued. Wei Wuxian watched them from atop the donkey's back, curious and flatly amused at once. That was thrice now that he heard of himself spoken about in such a way. Maybe he had been foolish in thinking that the world would soon forget about his existence.

The group dragged along the dirt path noisily. Wei Wuxian followed them from a distance. A minute later one of them cried out, and a bright flash of yellow light shrouded them all, forcing Wei Wuxian to put a hand over his eyes.

When he took it off, the cultivators were hanging from a tree branch, trapped inside a golden net.

"Help!" the youngest, a woman, cried out. She and her companions struggled, only managing to ensconce themselves further into net's powerful grip. She saw Wei Wuxian in the distance. "Help!" she called to him.

"This is a deity-binding net," he replied loudly to her. And indeed it was: the rich glow of the strings spoke of minutious knotting, helped by wielding spiritual energy directly through the strands. "I'm sorry, I don't have any magical tools on me. You're on your own." He kicked the side of the donkey to hurry it along. "The mountain is crawling with cultivators, I'm sure someone will find you soon," he added.

"You can't leave us behind! Young master, come back—"

The sound of hurried footsteps reached him then. The donkey's ear lifted to greet it, and Wei Wuxian dismounted quickly, hiding beneath the largest tree he could find.

He saw a young boy emerge from the bushes. He wore the golden-and-white peony of Lanlingjin, and on his pale forehead, the red dot reserved for members of the clan.

"Hah?" he let out in a still-youthful voice. "You're not spirits!"

"Of course we're not," the old cultivator in the net replied cuttingly. "Let us down now, boy."

But the boy in question looked highly disappointed. Wei Wuxian saw his hand relax its grip on the handle of the golden sword at his hip; he turned away from the trapped group and replied, "No way. I don't have time to lose with small fry like you. Just stay put until the hunt's over."

"You little—!"

The boy left without even answering.

How petulant.

It was easy enough to follow him. The Jin clan had always enjoyed its vibrant, rich clothing, so easy to discern among the more practical clothes worn by any other sect. Only Gusulan had ever come close in terms of flashiness—and their clothes remained practical despite their mournful coloring, meant for moving in as much as meditation or philosophy. Lanlingjin only ever cared about wealth.

It didn't surprise Wei Wuxian that this boy was the one to have set up such a pricey trap. No Jin clan cultivator enjoyed fair competition.

He watched the boy check up on a few more of those nets, which he had apparently set all over the mountain before the hunt even began. It made him laugh mockingly in the shadows of the trees; such a show of extravagance suited the clan much too well. Some things, it seemed, had not changed.

He quietly bit into one of the apples he had bought in town, pushing away the curious donkey's head when it tried to steal some for itself. The Jin boy was hard at work securing his nets, grunting with the effort of climbing trees or cutting up bothersome bushes. The bow strung around his back was painted with gold leaf. The sword, when he took it out, looked almost too long for him. It glowed familiarly.

Wei Wuxian's foot broke a twig in the silence—the boy jumped on his heels and shot an arrow his way, shouting, "Who's there?"

He avoided the blow easily enough; the boy had aimed in his general direction rather than directly at him, and the arrow pierced into the bark of an old pine tree harmlessly. However, Wei Wuxian stumbled out of his hiding spot, coughing around his mouthful of apple.

"Is that how you greet everyone you meet?" he asked a little breezily.

He expected the boy to reply in anger. Instead, his young face darkened with disgust as he said, "Oh, it's you."

Wei Wuxian observed him curiously. "Have we met?"

"What do you mean, have we met?" the boy snarled. "I wish I never had to meet you again. What are you even doing here? Do you think winning the hunt will place you back in the clan's favor? You're even more shameless than I thought, Mo Xuanyu."

This was too much animosity for them to be simple acquaintances.

Madam Mo had mentioned Lanling before she died. Wei Wuxian remember it in sudden clarity; she had said that Mo Xuanyu had come back from Lanling, had implied that he had done so in shame, even. And Mo Xuanyu's body knew inedia. It knew enough to procure the summoning ritual Wei Wuxian himself had created in Yiling and execute it flawlessly—a ritual which Lanlingjin could reasonably have taken as war gains once Wei Wuxian died in the Burial Mounds, considering the sect's standing after Qishanwen had fallen.

A no-name omega boy from a village far from any of the bigger clans, accepted as a disciple of Lanling. It could only make sense under one light. Hadn't Jin Guangshan made a point in the last months of Wei Wuxian's life to gather as many of his bastard children as he could?

Wei Wuxian felt nauseous again for entirely different reasons.

The boy in front of him looked even more impatient than before. "What's with you?" he spat. "Don't think Little Uncle will ever look at you again, even if you do win tonight."

Little Uncle? Wei Wuxian wondered. "I'm simply taking a stroll," he replied. "I don't care about any uncle of yours."

For some reason, the boy's face grew crimson with outrage. "How dare you!" he shouted. "After everything you did to him, you filthy omega—"

"Watch your tongue," Wei Wuxian cut off in a snap of irritation. "I've had enough of you, I believe. Have fun cheating your way into this hunt."

He had barely turned his back when he heard the all-too familiar sound of metal slicing the air.

Wei Wuxian sidestepped the boy's sword easily enough. The boy was still red in the face and sputtering with outrage; he swung again and again, lacking elegance and technique in his anger. Wei Wuxian danced around the tip of the blade with something like satisfaction, until the boy stumbled forward and he could kick him in the backside.

He hit the ground with a sharp cry. Wei Wuxian snapped a leaf out of the nearest tree and suffused it with energy, calling upon the remnants of dead bodies that the forest surely hid. They answered his appeal within seconds, and soon enough the leaf which he had thrown in the boy's direction became haunted with the weight of several spirits. The boy choked for a moment, now unable to rise.

"What are you doing, Mo Xuanyu?" he asked, watching Wei Wuxian with wide eyes. "This, this sort of technique—"

"You attacked me," Wei Wuxian replied lazily. "I should be allowed to defend myself, don't you think? I was unarmed."

He approached the boy, who now lay belly-first against the dirt. With a kick, he brought up the sword that had been dropped during the very short exchange.

"Don't touch that!"

Wei Wuxian ignored the pleading voice. It was a nice sword in more ways than one—not simply richly decorated and taken care of, but well-balanced, finely forged. He felt a thrum of spiritual energy on it which spoke more of its smith's qualities than of the boy at his feet's.

"Very nice," he muttered. He shook it till his hand rested fully around the handle, stabilizing his hold and letting him appreciate how light the weapon was, almost as light as Suibian once was. "I'll be keeping this," he told the boy.

"Don't you dare," the child replied, visibly panicked. "Don't, don't you dare, that's my sword, give it back—"

"See you around, young master Jin," Wei Wuxian declared as he turned his back.

"Mo Xuanyu!"

Fear seemed to enhance the faint river-like scent on him. It surprised Wei Wuxian long enough to make him glance over his shoulder one last time; the boy—a beta, against what he had expected—now looked much, much younger. Tears even shone in his eyes. It was almost enough to tempt Wei Wuxian into giving back the weapon.

Well, it wasn't as if he intended to keep it forever. Let the child stew a bit and learn a lesson in humility.

He left the small clearing in the direction of the first net. The donkey was where Wei Wuxian had left it, grazing dumbly, entirely unbothered by the noise and light around. Wei Wuxian grabbed its reins in one hand with a chuckle and led it back to where he had first dismounted.

The group was still hanging from the golden net. At the sight of him their staring turned to glares, at least until Wei Wuxian sent the sword flying and cut them free.

They fell to the ground all over each other, yelping in surprise.

He caught the sword as it flew back to him. He hadn't put any specific energy into it, but somehow, the weapon had obeyed him. Wei Wuxian ignored the grumbling thanks that the three cultivators addressed him in favor of frowning at the handle and blade. The more he looked and the more familiar it seemed, though he could not place where he could have possibly seen it before. He lifted it so that the ghost lights could shine better upon it, trying to jog his own memories.

"There's more nets," he told the three cultivators. "Be careful where you step."

The oldest man huffed. His alpha-scent tickled Wei Wuxian's nose disagreeably. "We didn't need your help," he said. "You better get lost before that monster shows up."

"Father," the woman scolded.

The man walked away with a purpose. The younger man by his side—a brother perhaps, for their faces looked faintly similar—ran after him quickly. Only the woman stayed a moment longer to bow at the shoulder in thanks, shooting Wei Wuxian a quick smile.

Now that this was done, Wei Wuxian should go back to the boy's side. The spirits trapped in the leaf should only hold him down for another few minutes.

He found him as he had left him: flat down on the dirt and swearing under his breath. This lack of manners was familiar as well, Wei Wuxian thought as he crouched next to him, though the only person he could think of with such foul temper was not, in fact, someone he wanted to think of.

Those memories of Yunmeng were better left buried.

"Did you have time to meditate on your flaws?" he asked the boy, planting the sword's blade into the ground and leaning his weight on its handle.

As expected, the sight of such mishandling made the boy's eyes widen with rage. "Let me go," he snapped.

"No can do, young master. I'd like an apology."

"You?" The boy laughed in a shaky and joyless way. "I'd never apologize to you."

Too bad, Wei Wuxian thought.

He hadn't expected mores to have shifted quite so thoroughly anyway. If even freed omega had to mask themselves to be considered worth talking to, then the world was not so different after all.

He snapped his fingers, dissipating the hold that the spirits had on the boy's body. He immediately jumped to his feet, trying to grab for the sword in Wei Wuxian's hand with no success. "Give it back!" he shouted.

"It's just a sword," Wei Wuxian replied, smiling. "I'm sure the Jin sect smiths can forge you many more. Just give it to me if you don't want to apologize."

"It's not just a sword! That's my father's—"

A frisson of cold, wily energy ran over Wei Wuxian's skin.

He tuned out the boy's angry words. Wind slithered through the forest canopy and made leaves rustle softly, not fully hiding the faraway sounds of cultivators roaming the woods in search of the soul-stealing monster. Wei Wuxian tried to listen more closely to those steps, hurried or slow, coming from all around them.

He couldn't hear any animals, he realized. No birds, no insects, no rodents running between low bushes with their catches of the evening.

"Be quiet," he told the boy.

He thought for a second that he would not obey; but the boy took a look at his face and seemed to realize something was wrong, for he fell silent, looking around and putting a hand over the arc of his bow.

It was then that they heard it: a deep, low moan echoing through the mountain, as if rocks had cracked open and let out the very breath of the world.

The boy by his side had gone very still. He wasn't as tall as the two Lan disciples Wei Wuxian had met the week previous, but he looked even smaller now, painfully child-like. "What was that?" he whispered.

"Probably the target of tonight's hunt," Wei Wuxian replied.

He thought for a long second.

His hold shifted on the handle of the sword. He let the blade drag backwards to make it easier to move without a sheath of any kind and said, "Come on, then. Let's see what all the fuss is about."

To his credit, the boy followed with a determined look in his eyes.

Wei Wuxian could blame his curiosity for many things. This was one of them. Since hearing of the soulless victims who had come down from the mountain out of the omega girl's mouth, he had harbored doubts about the nature of the creature they were all dealing with. Spirits did not deal in souls like this, and neither did any monster he knew of. Fierce corpses, obviously, only dealt physical damage as well.

The fact that his own evil-targeting compasses seemed to be lost in proximity with this target was a big clue. The ghost he had seen on his way was another. No, this was not any spirit or monster—this was something different. Something rarer.

"How do you know where to go?" the boy whispered at one point of their trek through the woods.

His earlier worry had dissipated the longer they walked. Now he glanced periodically at the sword still held in Wei Wuxian's hand, no doubt looking for an opportunity to steal it back. Wei Wuxian shook his head in answer, smiling to himself at the thought of the boy trying to jump him, but still focused on the threads of cold energy he felt over his skin. They were thin but immutable; like physical tendrils extending from one place to the next, only swayed slightly by wind.

With his free hand, he touched one of them. The tip of his finger turned as cold as ice. He trailed it along the length of the string-like energy, almost feeling it in more than spirit. He thought he could have grabbed it with his whole hand and tugged at it, if he tried.

The trail led them to the wide opening of a cave. At the sight of it, the boy's shoulders relaxed. "I've already looked here," he told Wei Wuxian angrily. "There nothing in it, just a stupid goddess statue."

"What goddess?" Wei Wuxian asked.

"How should I know? Apparently the statue naturally looked human, so they started worshipping it ages ago. Making wishes at it and such."

"Mmh," Wei Wuxian said.

The cave positively reeked with unsettled energy. It was a wonder anyone could walk past it and not feel their bones turn to ice.

He felt very little like actually walking inside. "Did you come here alone?" he asked the boy, leaning back against the side of the cave and once more planting the sword into the ground. "Or do you have someone you can call?"

"I don't need anyone's help," the boy replied, flustered.

"You do with this," Wei Wuxian replied. "Can't you feel it?"

"Feel what?"

Not much exposure to demonic cultivation, then. Which obviously made sense considering how loudly the Jin sect had disapproved of Wei Wuxian's practices—of Wei Wuxian himself—but which was of no help when such a beacon of darkness loomed, invisible to all the cultivators currently looking for it. "Close your eyes," Wei Wuxian said.

"What?" the boy exclaimed.

"Just do as I say. I'll give you your sword back if you're good."

The boy flushed angrily. With another muttered insult, he obeyed, his eyelids twitching slightly and his hands tense by his side. "No what?" he barked.

"Calm down. Try to feel the wind on your skin, try to hear every noise around. Breathe deeply."

To his surprise, the boy relaxed very quickly. Wei Wuxian felt his energy reach outward in search of sensation, of information to feed him; he watched him jump when a branch cracked in the wind, shiver when leaves fell into a gust of air.

He had talent. Innate, raw talent, obviously not trained the way it ought to be.

Was it because he was beta? Jin Guangshan had always so prioritized his bloodline despite his many affairs; even when he had searched for his children all over the country, Wei Wuxian remembered hearing of him dismissing most beta. If this boy was one of his sons, perhaps he had been sidelined in favor of whomever was the new heir. But then, it didn't explain how such a boy could have the money to buy and waste so many deity-binding nets, or why he carried such beautifully-crafted weapons. Wei Wuxian stroked the handle of the sword once more. It truly felt almost as agreeable to him as Suibian did all those years ago.

He was deep in thought when the boy started to shiver. "Why is it so cold?" he asked, eyes still tightly shut.

"This is what you're supposed to feel," Wei Wuxian replied. "Keep looking. Focus on the cold."

It wasn't a minute before the boy's eyes opened and he stepped back in fear.

Wei Wuxian pushed his body off of the rock. "Now," he told the boy, "do you understand why it would be foolish to try and handle this on your own?"

"What is it?" the boy asked, chest heaving ever-so-slightly under its embroidered tunic. "What—what monster is this?"

"I don't think it's a monster at all," Wei Wuxian replied. "I think this soul-stealing business is the work of the goddess you mentioned."

"The statue? But—"

Wei Wuxian could imagine what arguments he was coming up with, now. It was a rare thing for worshipped icons to turn into actual spiritual beings, capable of granting wishes or causing harm. Yet it was the only explanation as to why the compasses would not work, and the only story that could fit the sight of that old ghost, wandering the forest in search of his stolen jewels.

"I never learned how to seal a god," the boy said worriedly.

"No need to panic," Wei Wuxian replied. "I don't think it's strong enough yet to leave the cave on its own. Most likely, the people who lost their souls came here to pray, and the goddess took their souls in exchange for granting their wishes. They all came down from the mountain like this—she didn't come to them."

The boy sighed in relief.

"But," Wei Wuxian added, "I don't think she's far from being able to move. One more wish should do it."

"We can't let anyone get in here, then," the boy said.

"Exactly. Now let me ask you again: did you come here with someone you can ask for help? A master from your sect, perhaps? Someone with the tools and experience needed for such an exorcism."

The boy blushed a bright red. The line of his lips thinned.

Wei Wuxian idly tapped the blade of the sword against rock. The sound that his knocking produced echoed darkly inside the wide mouth of the cave.

"Stop that!" the boy said with another shiver. "Fine, all right, I came with my Uncle. Happy now?"

"Is he strong?" Wei Wuxian asked.

The boy looked at him as if he had grown a second head. "Of course he's strong," he replied. "Mo Xuanyu, you're so different. It's like you've lost your reason. Did you hit your head and lose all your memories?"

"Something like that," Wei Wuxian muttered.

The boy huffed, irritated yet still, somehow, arrogant. "I'll go get him, then," he said. "You stay here and don't take my sword anywhere!"

Then he vanished into the dark of the forest.

Wei Wuxian walked slowly to the middle of the cave's entrance. The ground in it sloped gently into the darkness, and that darkness was not total: into the depth of the grotto, he could glimpse flecks of soft orange light. Candles must still be lit from the last time someone had come to pray.

"Right, then," Wei Wuxian said.

He held the weirdly-obedient sword forward and stepped into the cave.

He didn't have to walk long. Barely two minutes later did he emerge into a wide cavity dug deep into rock, where candles burned out softly and the smell of incense itched in his throat. Light flickered off the smooth walls and around the tall statue at the center of the room.

It did look oddly like a human being. Set on a rough stone pedestal, it extended its many limbs in some semblance of elegance. Naturally-carved pieces such a this could never achieve true likeness, but this one came closer than most: the proportions of head, shoulders and limbs were pleasing to the eye. With candlelight drawing shadows out of every ridge, the statue almost seemed to have a face.

Wei Wuxian could hear it breathe. In and out and again, deep and slow like the lungs of a giant beast. He walked around it twice, looking for hints of human tampering and finding none at all. If he had, it would have been the product of demonic cultivation. Easy enough for him to decipher and put a stop to as long as he could find a powerful enough tool.

But there was no sign at all of foul play. The statue had simply gained sentience over centuries of worshipping, and the landslide and releasing of ghosts days prior had probably allowed for that accumulated energy to finally come alive.

Wei Wuxian walked out of the cave with much on his mind. On his way he crossed paths with a couple more cultivators; he addressed them a sheepish smile and said, "Nothing there, I'm afraid," trying to look as helpless as possible.

Mo Xuanyu's fine-featured face could occasionally come in handy. The two women thanked him for the tip and walked out alongside him. Once they all reached the opening, they went their separate way, and Wei Wuxian sat once again by the side, trailing fingers over the length of the sword.

He could definitely understand why the child was so attached to it. He would personally prefer it look less garishly expensive, but it was agreeable to the hand. It pulled at Mo Xuanyu's core almost gently.

It took at least another hour for the boy to return. In that time Wei Wuxian fended off some more curious cultivators and ate two of the apples he had bought, spitting their seeds out for birds to feed on the next day. The donkey had followed him for some reason, and now stood some steps away, munching on the cores he had thrown.

The boy emerged out of a different set of bushes than the one he had traversed. His eyes lit up at the sight of Wei Wuxian, and he said, "There you are."

"Did you think I'd leave?" Wei Wuxian asked, twirling the sword in his hand.

"Stop playing with it!" the boy snapped. He glared at Wei Wuxian for another second before calling over his shoulder: "Uncle, over here. That's the cave I told you about."

Wei Wuxian pushed himself upright, dusting his stolen clothes as he did, glad for the excuse not to be so still anymore. He threw another look in direction of the cave while the boy's uncle's footsteps approached. He could still see the orange glow at the far end of the tunnel, which was good; it would help them when they went back with the intent to seal this time—

He smelled earth and rain, powerful enough to make him waver on his feet, sharp and electric. Like a landslide, a lightning strike. Like the aftermath of a storm.

"Well," the newcomer said. The anger in it was so achingly familiar that Wei Wuxian felt it like a spike between his ribs; like an arrow in-between the shoulder blades. "Before we start, I'm going to have to ask you to hand back that sword."

Wei Wuxian turned his head.

Jiang Cheng was so much taller now than he used to be. It could simply be that Mo Xuanyu stood much shorter than Wei Wuxian ever had, he thought in horrified humor, but there was no mistaking the way the years had eroded his once-shidi's face. Gone was the softness which he had so abhorred during their teenage years; gone were the slouched back or anxious bursts of movement which Jiang Cheng had insisted Yu Ziyuan teach him how to master.

He stood in the same regalia that Wei Wuxian had last seen him wear. He stood in his clan colors, the twin braids over his ears knotted tightly at the back of his head, Sandu hanging from his waist.

He was the splitting image of his father.

Wei Wuxian forgot to breathe. He forgot all about the vile energy that had frozen his veins with the goddess's proximity. He clutched the sword in his hand and met Jiang Cheng's disconcerned eyes and thought, Don't look at me.

Don't look at me, he thought, over and over despite the hollowness of his heart and Jiang Cheng's angry words, angry movements, angry concern. Days and weeks of arguing until swords had to be drawn, until Wei Wuxian finally earned the right not to answer Jiang Cheng's questions, until Jiang Cheng looked in horror at him with Wei Wuxian's blood on his face. Don't look at me.

But Jiang Cheng was not angry or concerned now. He stepped closer to Wei Wuxian, who made no move of his own. "Did you hear me?" he asked.

"Uncle," the boy said.

"Not now, Jin Ling. We'll talk when you learn not to let amateurs get the drop on you like this."

That name.

"Jin Ling," Wei Wuxian said blankly.

The boy turned his way with a frown and replied, "What?"

But it wasn't him Wei Wuxian was seeing anymore.

He was seeing the pass near Lanling where he had once walked with Wen Ning by his side. He was smelling scorched ground and blood, he was hearing the cries of cultivators falling to the monster he had created and failed for once to control.

He was seeing Jin Zixuan in front of him with dirt and blood on his face; his extended hand and lax fingers, the desperate sincerity in his voice as he begged, "Please, let me help you."

The golden sword in his grip as he bowed for one last time with a hand over his heart.

Wei Wuxian's fingers opened as if burned. The sword clattered to the ground in a fracas of sound, echoing in the cave behind him and making the boy—Jin Ling—jump in surprise, his familiar features frowning in a way Wei Wuxian had seen, a very long time ago, on the face of a young boy his age, in a rocky maze in Qishan.

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[mentiormusa-blog]

The Portrayal of Satanism and How it Affects the Youth of Today

Preface

Growing up, I always had a pretty decent idea of what was good and what was evil. I knew that cops were the good guys and the robbers were the bad guys and I knew that Batman was the hero and the Joker was the villain. But I guess the most prominent example I knew of regarding the power struggle of morality was the battle between God and the Devil, with God being the bringer of life and the Devil being the evil incarnate. But, in more recent times, with society becoming more open when it comes to one’s belief, the idea of Satan or, more appropriately, Lucifer, being a misunderstood bringer of justice has become a more accepted concept among the younger population. This is only because of how he is presented in works of fiction like the Fox television show Lucifer, which is, in turn, based off of the DC comic series of the same name. The show follows Lucifer, the archangel who was cast out of heaven for refusing to follow his father’s orders,  as he sets out to bring justice upon the criminals of L.A. This backstory can also be seen in the television show, Supernatural, where he is still a villain of the story but is given a sense of humanity for the pain he feels for being cast out by the father he loved. 

Background

The Church of Satan, which is one of more the commonly referenced branches of Satanism, was founded in 1960 by Anton Szandor Lavey in the United States.  Laveyan Satanism has the core belief of more humanistic values, which prioritizes the betterment of oneself. Satan, being the symbol of the religion, represents self assertion, rebellion against unjust authority, vital existence, and “undefiled wisdom.”

Lavey learned much about the occult and ritual-magic teachings during his time as a carnival worker and, in 1966, incorporated them in the tenants of the church he founded on the Walpurgisnacht, or April 30th (which is referred to as May eve). In 1969, he sat down and recorded these beliefs and teachings in the Satanic bible. They also participated in rituals designed to encourage members to develop their sense of self-importance and to cast away their past lives full of submissiveness.

But what appeals to people the most are the Satanic Commandments that Lavey conjured up within this bible. The 11 Satanic commandments are:

Do not give opinions or advice unless you are asked.

Do not tell your troubles to others unless you are sure they want to hear them.

When in another’s lair, show him respect or else do not go there.

If a guest in your lair annoys you, treat him cruelly and without mercy.

Do not make sexual advances unless you are given the mating signal.

Do not take that which does not belong to you unless it is a burden to the other person and he cries out to be relieved.

Acknowledge the power of magic if you have employed it successfully to obtain your desires. If you deny the power of magic after having called upon it with success, you will lose all you have obtained.

Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.

Do not harm little children.

Do not kill non-human animals unless you are attacked or for your food.

When walking in open territory, bother no one. If someone bothers you, ask him to stop. If he does not stop, destroy him.

Not only do these promote a more open religion for the impressionable gen z, but it also appeals to a more open society as a whole. These commandments are comparable to the ideals that have been seen more frequently within this evolving society, especially with the obvious disdain for sexual assault, child abuse, animal abuse, and being an overall nuisance.

Interview one (Axel Garcia, 17)

I was on the phone with my first subject, Axel Garcia, when the matter was brought up. Me and him have discussed both religion and the existence of an afterlife many times before this. Upon beginning the interview, I noticed that he was at ease and the topic itself did not bother him.  1

What is your Religious affiliation?

“I’m not a very religious person, I need evidence in order to believe in something so I’d say that I’m agnostic.”

When you hear the terms Satan and Satanism, what comes to mind?

“Evil and the flames of the hell for Satan and people who do not like God.”

How do you think media portrays Satan and Satanism?

“Some portray him as the king of darkness and the prince of all evil, while others portray him as this cool, chill guy who’s trying to become good.”

Would you say that this portrayal have affected the way you view them?

“As a kid, everytime he was mentioned, I thought, ‘Holy Crap, it’s the devil, he’s gonna punish me if I don’t behave,’ but as I got older, I started to think for myself and with shows like Lucifer and even kids shows sometimes painting him out to be just another person doing what he needs to do really impacted my views.” 

Interview two (Matthew Krug, 17)

The next person I interviewed was Matthew Krug. I asked him first if it was okay to interview him on the matter and, to my suprise, he was excited. The day of the interview, he kept texting me about how excited he was regarding it and how he could not wait to do it. 

What is your religious affiliation?

“I was born Roman Catholic but up until a couple years ago, I have not been as religious and I now recognize myself as agnostic.”

When you hear the term satanism, what comes to mind?

“When I was younger, Satanism was just...Satanism; they worship the devil, sacrifice babies and all that. But now, with the more that I have learned about them, I see them as more independent as anything else. The whole thing about Satanism is being independent from religion or God and that is really being a service to yourself than to a higher power.”

When you hear the term Satan, what comes to mind?

“Well, because of popular media and stuff like that, the term Satan and the Devil will obviously be coincided with evil and bad, but right now, Satan is just...Satan, I don’t really feel a certain way about the word or have any negative or positive connotations with it.”

How do you think media portray Satan and Satanism?

“Obviously, since the world is run by religion, Satan and Satanism are portrayed as the bad guys and evil.”

Would you say that this portrayal have affected the way you view them?

“No, because I know it’s just pop culture; it’s just media putting their two-cents in.”

If you had to stereotype a Satanist, how would you describe them?

“The stereotypical ones are the people who draw pentagrams in lambs blood and sacrifice virgins and babies. But, as I see them now, they’re just people trying to believe in and follow a certain ideological standpoint and deity just like everyone else. I’m not going to persecute them for that.

Interview three (Christopher Dellinger)

The next person I decided to interview was my father, who is active in the music scene. Having played in numerous rock and alternative bands for the past couple of decades, I decided to speak with him about the matter. When the topic was brought up, I noticed that he was passionate about it. The questions for this interview went more in depth than the other ones.

What is your religious affiliation?

“Christian.”

When you hear the term Satan, what comes to mind?

“The Devil, a two-horned man with red skin and a goatee. The father of evil, the one who crushes the universe.”

When you hear the term Satanism, what comes to mind?

“A group of impressionable people who made up their views based off of a fictitious book written by Anton Lavey (Satanic Bible) in the 1960 who don’t really have a clue on what goes on.” 

How would you say that Satan and Satanism is portrayed in media?

“It’s glorified, to make Satan seem like a superhero and is portrayed as something spooky, yet cool, which is not a good interpretation. Unfortunately, if there is a good and an evil, Hell is not going to be a party. If you go to Hell, you’re screwed; there is not this big rock and roll party in the streets where you get to hang out with your bros and jam out to Ozzy Osbourne and eat barbecue. So the portrayal is misguiding.”

Would you say that this portrayal has affected the way younger generations see him?

“Yes, because they blur the lines between good and evil and they glorify satan by thinking that Satan is actually good and could be something possible when it’s not.”

Would you say that this portrayal have affected the way you view them?

“Kind of, because it makes me dislike the fake Satanists, the people that believe in Anton Lavey, that do not have a good understanding of good and evil and think that they could have created a religion in the 1960’s. They claim that they are their own God and that they don’t believe in it while denouncing the bible.”

How do you feel about the younger generations viewing Satan as this anti-hero, in a way?

“Unfortunately, they’re just misguided, and don’t have a proper understanding of the religion or what Satanism actually is.”

Since you’re in the heavy metal scene and have been for awhile, how would you say that this portrayal has affected rock and roll?

“There’s a funness about it because there is rebellion such as ACDC’s Highway to Hell. Heavy metal has been associated with Satan. Members of Slayer have actually said that they’re catholics and it’s all for show. Marilyn Manson has had a career on being a priest at the Church of Satan and using Satan as a platform. But, in the end of the day, it’s all theatrics and, in that aspect, it’s fun for Halloween and shock rock. It’s fun as rebellion, but as long as the lines aren’t crossed and someone doesn’t commit an act of evil, then it’s fine. Partying with the devil seems like a great idea, but at the end of the day, as long as those lines aren’t blurred, it’s entertainment and shouldn’t be taken more than face value.”

Would you say that this portrayal is affecting the way kids see religion?

“Yes, it’s changing to an extent but there is always been young people that have rebelled against their parents. It’s just comes in different forms and now it might be more open, but it is what it is. Kids will always rebel against what their parents want for them until they are parents and the cycle just repeats itself.”

Conclusion

Going into this topic, I initially thought that Satanism and Satan were prime components of society that affected children but, the more research that I did, the more I realized that this issue could actually be viewed as an overlying theme and broken into a cluster of smaller pieces meant for a grander puzzle; glorification, societal acceptance, the change of religious importance, and rebellion.

With glorification and societal acceptance, which can both be tied into each other, one could infer that this type of response only happens when society allows for it. The idea of living in a society in which has become more accepting to unconventional practices, allows for this newer generation, who are leading members of this more liberal movement, to find an interest in a ideal that has previously been found as ludicrous and taboo. This, in turn, creates a worldwide mindset where people can, in a sense, exist in a moral purgatory; where life and, more specifically, morality, is not so black and white. Where something that should be inherently evil can have the possibility of being viewed as something else. And Laveyan Satanism caters to that by turning Satan into a symbol of acceptance.

As for teenage rebellion and religious importance, which can also be tied into each other, Satan is only an example of an outlet for children to rebel against an ‘unjust authoritarian figure,’ aka their parents (which correlates to the very symbolism this figure has within the religion). With Satan being such a prominent figure for being on the opposite end of the spectrum of conventional thinking and beliefs, teens are drawn to him for shock value. Plus, with how he is portrayed as this symbol of freedom, free thinking, and a live-for-yourself mentality, it is no surprise that teens wouldn’t see him as something entirely evil for they see a piece of themselves within the illusionary mask of the devil. And, if religion plays an important role within their upbringing, it is more likely for them to follow this path in order to spite their parents and drift away from family-set expectations.

[goodvibesatpeace]

Relationships: 10 Soulmate Love Myths 

When we were young we listened to jovial stories about princes and princesses falling in love and getting married. We were taught that we only have one true love out there, and that this person (who is always the opposite gender) completes us.

As we grow older many of us seek to fulfil this romantic ideal. Some of us spend years pining and searching for the “perfect” lover who can tick all the boxes and match all of our criteria. In fact, some of us even carry around a mental idea of what our soulmates will look like, sound like, and behave like.

Many of us think we know what we want in a person, when in fact we don’t. And sometimes, when someone not quite matching our description comes along, we shut ourselves off, missing the opportunity.

To those of us who have experienced severe emotional and mental wounding in our lives, soulmates appear as a kind of holy mecca or “promised land.” When we feel incomplete, lonely and disconnected from ourselves, the ideal of soulmate love becomes a beacon of hope promising to save us. Soon we start sincerely believing that our beloved will “complete us,” and thus make our lives meaningful again.

Deep down many of us believe that there is at least one person out there who will fulfill all of our needs and desires. In fact, such a warped belief is what causes such high divorce rates and relationship dysfunction running rife in our societies.

There are so many harmful myths about soulmates that circulate through our cultural dialogues. These myths end up as rigid stories and ideals within our minds. In fact, these ideals and beliefs are actually responsible for limiting our spiritual growth and capacity to mature as divine beings. Believing that anything outside of yourself will complete or make you whole is not only misguided, but highly dangerous to your well-being.

So with this in mind, let’s explore 10 of the most common soulmate love myths out there:

Myth 1. You can “find” your soulmate.

First of all, it’s important to drop the illusion of control. Here’s a wake up call: you have no power over when, where or how your soulmate will appear. All you can realistically do is be open and receptive to meeting your soulmate. The human ego tends to believe that it can control life. But life can’t be controlled. Life is just as wise, wild and mysterious as it is frustrating! Our soulmates often appear “out of the blue” when we least expect them to. But it’s also quite common to intuit, sense or dream about your soulmate before they suddenly appear in your life.

Myth 2. What you want in your soulmate is what you’ll get.

We tend to approach relationships with preconceived notions of what we want or need. So many articles out there that I’ve read recommend “visualizing your soulmate” so as to “attract them” into your life. However, this is another trick of the ego. The law of attraction doesn’t quite work that way. It is your thoughts and beliefs that reflect your reality. Your soulmate often isn’t someone you consciously desire, but someone you unconsciously attract and need for inner growth.

Myth 3. Soulmates will stay with you no matter what.

This is another highly harmful myth that creates a lot of unnecessary pain. As a species we find great comfort in the thought of “always and forever” (hence why marriage is so appealing to us). But this isn’t always the case. Sometimes our soulmates stay for a season, and sometimes they stay for a lifetime.

Myth 4. We only have ONE soulmate.

This point is a matter of personal opinion. However, I believe it is possible to have more than one soulmate in a lifetime. Talking to many people about their thoughts and experiences on love, I’ve discovered that a great number have had “multiple” soulmate experiences. Each was different, precious and life-changing in varied ways. I do, however, believe that we only have one twin flame relationship.

Myth 5. Soulmates are always romantic/sexual.

On the contrary, soulmate relationships can be completely platonic with no sexual or romantic feelings involved. In other words, your soulmate could simply be your best friend in the world.

Myth 6. Soulmates are human.

We think of soulmates in terms of humans loving other humans. But many people have felt intense and strong bonds with animals and pets that transcend human language.

Myth 7. Soulmates are the opposite gender.

Religion and tradition would have us believe that soulmates are heterosexual in nature. In reality, love is free: it is not restricted by what is thought of as “right” or “wrong.” Your soulmate could very well be of the same gender as you. If you identify as heterosexual this will obviously come as a great shock to you. However, it will ultimately encourage you to reclaim your authentic sexuality.

Myth 8. Soulmates are single.

Love is a complex emotion. It is true that “we can’t choose who we love” — love flows freely and runs wild. Who can claim to understand the mysteries of the heart? As such, many people are tormented by the fact that the one they love is already in a relationship or marriage. This is not the same as stimulation seeking or lust: soulmates resonate much deeper than great chemistry, sex or compatible interests. As such, soulmates in this position must choose to move on, or break up marriages. While both options are painful, both are ultimately catalysts for growth.

Myth 9. Soulmate relationships are effortless.

There is a widespread assumption that soulmate love is easy and stress free. This belief adds to the desirability and idealization of such a relationship. However, soulmate relationships require time, effort, patience and diligence like any other relationships. Without conscious maintenance, even soulmate relationships will fail.

Myth 10. Soulmates complete you.

Perhaps the most destructive myth of all, the thought that our soulmates complete us is not only misleading but it is also highly self-disrespecting. We are taught to believe that our soulmates are our “missing halves” when in fact they are helpers and catalysts of our spiritual growth. The belief that our soulmate “completes us” is so popular because it encourages us to bypass responsibility for our happiness and wholeness. It’s much easier to put the burden and pressure on others! So many people enter relationships believing their soulmate will give them everything they need. This unfortunately leads to issues such as codependency, toxic enabling and self-betrayal.

Instead of looking outside for completion, why not look inside of your own precious and unexplored soul? Everything — all the love, acceptance and joy you need — is waiting there to be found.

Some final parting words: learn to completely love, forgive and cherish the person you are. This is the best way to both attract, and bring harmony to your soulmate relationship.

[mylittleyoni]

Midwives, Nurses, & OBGYN's (Oh My!)

A history of the over-medicalization of birth and the female body.

Society often paints midwives as spiritual, non-academic women, who are ill-equipped for the real dangers of childbirth. From sitcoms, to celebrity reporting, having a midwife or doula present for your birth can be seen as ‘woo woo.’ With the rise of western medicine, midwifery received the reputation of being unsafe for mothers, unsafe for baby, and something only elite women take part in. You should want to see a doctor, instead of seeing a woman who carries on a tradition of guiding women through their births, right? I’m going to walk you through the history of midwifery and why societal preferences for doctors above midwives can be misguided.  You’ll learn how, over generations, midwifery in the U.S. turned from a practical practice, to a discredited one with the development of modern medicine and rampant sexism resulting in the overmedicalization of the female body.

During colonial times, midwives solely performed deliveries for all women. They brought this tradition over from England, where midwifery is still widely respected. In fact, in countries like Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom, midwives attend most births and outnumber obstetricians. In the 1700s, society viewed childbirth as a social rite performed by women for women. They respected a woman’s natural process of giving birth, and trusted midwives to guide this process. However, in 1751, a large push for professionalism in medicine led to sexist views on the profession of the midwife. Women were deemed too emotional and incapable of learning new obstetric methods. With these attitudes being spread, wealthy women didn’t want midwives attending their births, but physicians instead. Midwifery soon became the best access to healthcare that lower class women and women of color could afford for their births.

Social influence slowly pushed women out of the medical field, claiming that once married, women should only have domestic roles. Even as Midwife training programs appeared across the country, the primary students were men. In the late 1800s, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology was formed, and doctors became more integrated into the middle and upper classes. With the downfall of Midwifery in America, came the rise of gynecology and obstetrics.  

19th century American Gynecologist J. Marion Sims is widely known as the father of modern gynecology. Lesser known is that he performed his first experiments on slave women without anesthesia. Anesthesia being difficult to obtain during the time was Sims excuse for foregoing it. He also carried a cruel and racist belief that black women have a higher pain tolerance than white women. With this being the basis of modern gynecology, it's no surprise that obstetrics and gynecology carry a long history of mistreating women, especially black women. By 1900, physicians were present at half the births in the nation, Midwives still making up for the other half while taking care of lower-class women and women of color. In 1914 the invention of “twilight sleep” allowed women to not feel the pain of childbirth. In fact, they didn’t feel it at all. Women would seemingly go to sleep and wake up with no recollection of the birth. “Twilight sleep” was viewed as a sign of medical progress even though mothers were completely removed from the birth experience and often the anesthesia negatively affected the newborns. However, the serious problems associated with “twilight sleep” were ignored for years and the practice continued into the 1970s.

After the invention of twilight sleep, in 1915 Dr. Joseph DeLee described birth as a pathological process, one that wasn’t a normal function for women, and therefore, midwives had no business in it.

Sit with that one a minute. Can you imagine telling a modern mother that her birth is a ‘pathological process’?!

It’s astounding to see the lying propaganda peddled in the medical community and blindly accepted as truth.  Obviously, a woman’s body has evolved for the process of pregnancy, birth, and post-partum, and yet false theories to the contrary would persist until the 1950s.  

In 1952 the midwifery section of the National organization for Public Health Nursing affirmed that pregnancy was in fact a natural process, and a family centered event (gee really? Thanks!) With this attitude change, more women began entering the medical field as nurses, midwives, and OBGYNs. By the 1970s women accounted for only 9 percent of medical students, but this would jump to 25 percent by the end of the decade. During this time, women’s groups began learning how to care for their own vulvas, and shortly after these groups called for medical care to be demystified and for the female body to be de-medicalized. They argued that since birth was a natural process, there wasn’t a need for births to take place in hospitals over the constant supervision of obstetricians. Furthermore, in the 1980s, the medical community came under fire, while women’s groups demanded the same access to medical care for all women. The disparity in medical care started becoming obvious to women of color, who were far more likely to have limited access to effective care. With this in mind, midwifery started to be viewed as a profession again, and one that should be standardized and regulated. In 1994 the North American Registry of Midwives offered its first written examination to certify midwives. Sadly however, midwifery is still illegal in many states as of 2020, and regulations on what’s required to become a certified midwife varies from state to state.  

Today, the majority of births still occur in a hospital. Even with midwives and doulas becoming more widely accepted, there’s still a mistrust of the profession. But when you look at the history, it’s clear to see midwifery decreased in popularity because of sexist, racist, and classist views. Midwives were discredited by the medical community for being women, lower-class, and women of color, even though they carried on long-standing and effective traditions.  

As a vagina superhero, I believe medical birth practices and midwifery can come together, each with the unique and vital value they provide. In fact, the word obstetrics, is actually the Latin word for midwife, and is taken from the root word obstare, meaning to stand before, because attendants stood in front of the mother to “catch” the baby.

The two professions don’t have to be at odds with each other, they can agree to be on a shared mission, to help mother’s deliver their babies to the world. For example, training programs at UCSF now place both midwife students and OBGYN residents together during a vital part of their learning, in order to build a foundation of respect between the two professions.

UCSF charges forward with this new initiative in the wake of covid-19 causing shut-downs of maternal wards, especially in low-income and rural communities. Integrating midwives into maternal healthcare is necessary to ensure every mother gets the best care.

The history of these two professions should be examined while noting that quality medical access is still less accessible to women of color and lower-class women. In turn, midwives, even today, can help fill that gap in healthcare.

While I am hopeful to see institutions like UCSF work hard to create an understanding between these two professions, there is no doubt that the U.S. overall needs to step up in providing equal care across the board which should include more readily available and highly trained midwives.

Integrating advocates for mothers into the medical system that inherently trusts in the female body’s process can be part of much needed reform and a movement towards healthy birth opportunities for all women.

[calciopics]

Jürgen Klopp: 'I have this helping syndrome. I really care about people'

Exclusive: Liverpool’s manager discusses the Champions League semi-final against Roma, a three-hour chat with Mo Salah, his health scare ... and Brexit

Jürgen Klopp is calm and serene. His face lights up, of course, at the prospect of “the mighty battle” which awaits Liverpool on Tuesday when Roma arrive at Anfield for the first leg of their Champions League semi-final. He also leans forward animatedly when assessing the intriguing challenge the Italians will pose. Yet, beyond the cliche of Klopp as a madly gurning cheerleader on the touchline, the 50-year-old German proved, again, his tactical nous and inspirational management while guiding Liverpool to three victories this season over the feted Premier League champions Manchester City. The 5-1 aggregate defeat of City in the quarter-finals was exhilarating and resilient.

It is striking how, at Liverpool’s training ground, Klopp is also stimulated when discussing real life and tangled politics, Brexit and Angela Merkel. There are moments in a free-wheeling conversation when the hilarity feels unstoppable as Klopp considers a claim that he would win an election to become German chancellor because of his attention to detail, communication skills and empathy. But there are many more thoughtful moments – particularly when Klopp address the vexed issue of Brexit and his belief that British people should have the chance to vote again on their future in or outside the EU.

We start, however, with Klopp reminiscing about his youthful desire to become a doctor. That teenage ambition chimes with his persistent interest in helping people “get better every day” and his work with players, from Mo Salah to Dejan Lovren, who improve in contrasting ways.

“I was young when I thought about becoming a doctor,” Klopp says with a smile as he remembers growing up in the Black Forest village of Glatten. “I had the idea three years before my A-level. But to study medicine your A-level results had to be fantastic. So it was good for all the people who would have been under my knife that I didn’t make it. But it was close to be honest.”

That wistful sentence is swamped by his laughter. But the idea of Dr Klopp is not outlandish. He exudes a warmth and intelligence we would all want to see in a doctor. “I have this helping syndrome,” Klopp says. “I really care about people and I feel responsible for pretty much everything.”

Klopp’s inclusive leadership, ensuring everyone feels nurtured and needed, is at the root of his success. Is he also becoming a scouser as his immersion in Liverpool runs so deep? Klopp grins, brandishing his cup: “There’s this tea, for example. When we come somewhere new my family like to adapt. We want to live like people here. I’m not a guy who says: ‘By the way, I want to tell you in Germany we do it like this or that.’ We look so similar but we are very different too. It’s really interesting. My boys both work in Germany but they are football maniacs so they’re very often here. They tell me about the nightlife and I experience the country in the daytime.”

Does life on this small island seem insular, particularly when the political landscape has shifted dramatically since he arrived? “I’ve heard it said that English people are not looking outwards but I don’t see it. I live in Formby and work in Liverpool. I drive from here to there and sometimes I’m in different cities for games. So I don’t know enough about the country but many people come to Britain because English is the language the world speaks.

“I can’t say Germany is more open. If you ask the wrong people in Germany they would say: ‘Yes, we want a fence to keep foreigners out and, by the way, could you make is as high as the [Berlin] Wall.’ Europe has been strange the last few years. I like to go to Austria for skiing but they only push [immigrants] through to Mrs Merkel. Being a leader in this situation is not a joy. There is no easy solution”

The option favoured by the Brexiteers, however, seems misguided and dispiriting. “I understand,” Klopp says. “I’m not the best-informed person but I’m very interested in it. When Mr Cameron had the idea [of a referendum] you thought: ‘This is not something people should decide in a moment.’ We are all influenced by the way only some of the argument is given, and once the decision is taken nobody gives you a real opportunity to change it again. The choice was either you stay in Europe, which is not perfect, or you go out into something nobody has any idea how it will work.

“So you give people the chance to make this big decision. And then it’s a 51-49 [51.9%-48.1%] vote and you’re thinking: ‘Wow, 49% are not happy with the decision that’s going to change the country.’ For the 51%, I’m sure they realised pretty early after the vote: ‘What have we done?’

“The two leaders of the Leave campaign then stepped aside. It was a pure sign they were surprised themselves by the vote. OK, that can happen. But then, come on, let’s sit together again. Let’s think about it again and let’s vote again with the right information – not with the information you’ve got around the Brexit campaign. They were obviously not right, not all of them. It makes no sense at all.

“When I speak to people they say: ‘I wanted to stay [in Europe] but I don’t want to talk about it because I don’t feel it yet as a person.’ I feel it constantly because since I came here the pound dropped. People go on holiday and say: ‘Spain is very expensive!’ But it’s only because the pound is not that strong any more. The EU is not perfect but it was the best idea we had. History has always shown that when we stay together we can sort out problems. When we split then we start fighting. There was not one time in history where division creates success. So, for me, Brexit still makes no sense.”

This embrace of Europe does not mean Klopp is disparaging towards British footballers. More than most Premier League clubs he has an English core to his squad. Jordan Henderson, James Milner, Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, Adam Lallana, Trent Alexander-Arnold, Joe Gomez, Nathaniel Clyne, Dominic Solanke and Danny Ings are joined by other bright young talents such as Scotland’s Andrew Robertson and Wales’ Ben Woodburn.

“They are here because they’re really good – not because they’re English or British. But if you have two players at the same level and one is English and the other is from somewhere else I always go for the English guy. They keep the mood good and for them it’s easy to feel the club’s history. But we have fantastic boys from all over the world and they love the club. Roberto Firmino has such a Liverpool heart. But the English guys lead the group. Tottenham and us we are pretty much the English national team and I like that.”

Liverpool’s, and the PFA’s, Player of the Season is Egyptian. Salah faces his former club on Tuesday. Klopp’s acumen in signing Salah from Roma has been underlined and a £35m transfer fee now smacks of a bargain. “Mo did very well at Roma but they have Edin Dzeko who is an outstanding striker. So it was their tactics to sometimes play him wide. Now, a year older, he came to us full of confidence. He scored in the first game but missed two big chances. So, unbelievably, he could have scored much more [than the 41 goals Salah has this season]. We have learned about him step by step because he plays constantly in the same position. This season is more about interpretation [of his goalscoring talent] and because Bobby Firmino is a workhorse he really gives Mo space. I’ve had many talks with Mo and he sees what the others do for him.”

Did he spend much time assessing Salah’s character before signing him? “I always meet the player before we sign. That’s when I decide because I have a good feeling for people. It was a fantastic talk. He’s open, smiling all the time. He has crazy curls but he’s a really nice boy. He also looked much more mature than it says on his passport. Twenty-four? I was: ‘Wow, really?’ We talked for three hours about everything from his family to my family and at the end we had a deal to work together. I like to remind players from time to time of that agreement. It’s working really well with Mo.”

Lovren has had a more testing season and mistakes against Spurs and Manchester United meant that many Liverpool fans denounced him. But his resurgence has been marked and, against City, he was a clear leader. “There are some really difficult things in Liverpool,” Klopp says. “The whole Liverpool family is not happy with not winning big trophies since whenever – so you always find a reason. ‘The problem is we don’t spend enough.’ Or, ‘The players make mistakes’. So, really, it’s a difficult job to be Liverpool’s goalkeeper. I’m not sure who was the last goalkeeper everybody was happy with here. It would be a while ago. And if you are not Sami Hyypia then your life as a defender is also difficult.

“I don’t exactly know about Dejan’s start at Liverpool but he made a few mistakes. People always have that in mind: ‘Oh, Lovren again!’ But I’m long in the business. I said to Dejan: ‘If somebody told me, come on, you have the chance, create a centre-half. We found a way to do it, genetically, bam, bam, bam.’ That’s him, strong, quick, both feet, can head like crazy, jumps through the roof. He’s all you need. Yes, a few things you can improve – his concentration. But these are human beings.

“Other centre-halves make mistakes. Against City, Virgil van Dijk, an outstanding person and fantastic player, should have cleared the ball before they scored. Virgil knows that. But nobody spoke about it because we won. It doesn’t look like it but I’m really relaxed in judging these things. When I see talent, and I’m convinced, I am calm.”

Liverpool now face a formidable test – despite a widely held belief that Roma are the weakest club in the semi-finals. “Roma are interesting,” Klopp says. “We’re expecting a mighty battle. They have Dzeko, they brought in the young Czech guy [Patrik] Schick and the young Turk [Cengiz Ünder]. Fantastic. [Daniele] De Rossi controls the midfield. Their defence is really experienced. Alisson is a fantastic goalkeeper. They beat Barcelona. They were first in their group, they didn’t concede a goal at home so far in the Champions League. There are many impressive things about them.”

It helps that Klopp has been here before although, when we remember our previous interview, before Dortmund lost to Bayern Munich in the 2013 Champions League final, he grimaces. “I’ve never watched it back. It’s too painful.”

Manchester City felt Champions League pain against Liverpool – but soothed themselves by winning the league with five games to spare. How close are Liverpool to a concerted tilt at City’s title next season? “It’s an interesting question because while we improved a lot they do the same. You can’t imagine that City, after a brilliant season, will say: ‘Oh, that’s so good we’ll keep the same squad.’ They will find new players. I also noticed an interesting thing. Their club has more money than every club in the world but I saw the City boys celebrating in a really nice way in the pub. It showed a real team.”

It has been another draining season but Klopp looks fit and well. He was said to have suffered a minor health scare in November when he went to hospital. “We all go for a check now and then but nobody knows. It was actually a funny situation. They tried to bring me in through the back door but the security guy has a walkie-talkie and he says: ‘Klopp is in the house!’ But, really, I’m fine. I love the job but if somebody told me: ‘If you carry on you will die much earlier’ then I’d say immediately: ‘Thank you. I’m on the road home.’”

He looks intrigued when I point out that, after spending seven years each at Mainz and Dortmund as manager, his Liverpool contract runs until 2022. He will then have completed a third seven-year stint at a club with whom he has fallen in love. “The seven years is a coincidence. When you have a marriage and if you’re past your seventh year then you’re OK. But, actually, I don’t need this kind of settling. It’s not in my nature. But when I am in a club I am in it totally.”

Liverpool are lucky to have him but, thinking of that seven-year cycle, I joke with Klopp that some people have another job in mind for him. Martin Quast, a German sportswriter, said: “If Klopp wanted to run for German president, he would get elected. He would bring people together, lead the way, make people happy.”

After Klopp has stopped laughing he explains that Quast is from Mainz. “Maybe in 2004 I could have been chancellor of Mainz. But I have absolutely no skills apart from being interested in politics. I would enjoy it if a politician spoke like a normal person but the job is complex. So we should care about our good people in politics because there’re not many of them. It’s like being a football manager. Many people are interested in football but only a few combine all the skills. Politics is even more difficult. I could never do it – or want to do it.”

Klopp as German chancellor would still be fun and maybe he could find a way to help Brexit Britain. “Hmmm,” Klopp says with mock seriousness. “Angela Merkel has two weeks off a year. That’s less holiday than I have which means that’s absolutely not my target. On holiday everybody is following her. She’s in the mountains having a nice hike and every year the same picture of Angela and her husband. I really like her and she’s doing an unbelievable job. But it’s a very difficult job – which is not as well paid as a football manager either. I will stick with Liverpool.”

by Donald McRae (The Guardian)

[ultramanismycopilot]

Team Galactic, Or, How I Learned To Stop Feeling And Love Nothing

Like many people, Pokémon represents a big chunk of my childhood. I was hooked from the moment I placed Pokémon Blue into my Gameboy, and to this day I still hold the franchise very close to my heart.

I’ve played at least one mainline game in every generation, and there are very few of them I’d ever call “bad” (some better than others, sure, but none ever dipping below the “good enough” line!).

The 7th Generation of Pokémon games was an interesting experiment, with Sun and Moon taking a much more character-driven focus to its story, as opposed to simply having a wafer-thin plot to fill in the gaps between Gym Leaders.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but I actually rather enjoyed SM for this. Lillie’s story was very interesting to me, and many were the times were I found myself very curious to see where it was headed. That’s not to say there weren’t flaws, obviously (a cutscene skip option would have been nice), and the story wasn’t exactly to the level of the majority of RPGs out there, but for what it was, I found it rather enjoyable.

This was, in no small part, due to its main villain Lusamine, who I’ve seen quite some fans call her the most complex Pokémon villain to date. And while I wouldn’t take away the fact Lusamine is a very interesting villain in her own right, I feel she has strong competition in terms of villainy in the Pokémon world.

Whoever your favorite villain in the entire series is, obviously, down to personal preference. This is just me gushing about a team and villain that I find to be remarkably fascinating for a Pokémon game, and who I believe to be one that gets somewhat misunderstood among the community.

So, with that (way too long) introduction out of the way, let’s talk about Team Galactic!

Team Galactic, for those unaware, is the main villainous team of Generation 4. Their goal, as understood by its Grunts, is the reinvention of the entire universe so that they would be in charge of everything and everyone. They masqueraded as a company devoted to studying alternate energy sources, but behind that lie there were dreams of not just planetary conquest, but of all reality.

This already places them quite a few steps above in terms of ambition from the team before them, and even those that came later. It’s not money they crave like the Rockets, and they’re certainly not doing this out of a misguided attempt at saving the environment like Aqua or Magma.

Galactic’s Grunts, however, could possibly be described as even dumber than any of those teams, and that’s no secret. Despite their lofty goals, Galactic Grunts are dumb as rocks, acting like no more than petty thugs and thieves and bringing plenty of unwanted attention towards their organization. As they are, their sole strength is in numbers, as the Grunts alone would be incapable of staging any of attacks seen throughout the course of the game.

As such, Team Galactic relies on its circle of Commanders to get things done: Saturn, Mars, Jupiter, and Charon (in Platinum). Unlike the Grunts, they manage to be somewhat of a bigger threat, but despite being smarter they still hold much of the same idea as Grunts in regards to their organization and what their goals are. There’s a few exceptions however: Saturn seems to be driven by curiosity; Mars seems to believe Team Galactic is doing the world a favor; Jupiter seems to only care about ruling over Sinnoh; and Charon is only in it for the money.

However, none of them, not even the Commanders, truly understood what their leader had in store, and what is real plans actually were. The man called Cyrus had plans far, far different from what his organization envisioned, and this is where the really interesting bits start to pop up.

Without beating around the bush any longer, Cyrus can be succinctly and quite accurately described in just two words: cult leader.

While Cyrus’s goals towards universal reset weren’t a secret to Team Galactic, what that actually entailed was. Cyrus brought in all of his followers with promises of power beyond their wildest dreams, and a chance to become greater than anything they every imagined. He’d rally them with passionate speeches  about their mission, and the impact that Team Galactic, not just himself, would have upon the planet:

Cyrus: Fellow members of Team Galactic! Hear me! My name, as I appear to you today, is Cyrus. This world of ours is a crude one. In a word, it is incomplete. It has been, and always will be, a struggle to survive in this world. We humans and Pokémon are likewise incomplete. Because we are all so lacking, we fight, we maim... It is ugly. I hate the incompleteness. That we are all incomplete, I hate it with my entire body and being. The world should be complete. The world must change. Then, who will change it? Me, Cyrus. And Team Galactic. Yes, all of you. Together we pored over myths and exposed their secrets. Together we captured legendary Pokémon. And now, Team Galactic has obtained the energy to change the world! The power of dreams is within our grasp! Understand it, fellow members! My long-held dreamworld is on the verge of becoming reality. All those headed to Mt. Coronet, and those who remain here... Though our missions may differ, our hearts beat as one. Let there be glory for Team Galactic!

This was the lie Cyrus told his followers, and while we only see this speech in the game, a post-game interaction with Saturn leaves enough implication this was a common tactic by Cyrus to get people to join him:

Saturn: Our leader, Master Cyrus, hated the very idea of spirit. He hated spirit for being incomplete. And yet, using fiery exhortations, he rallied the spirit of others. What he hated most, he used to control others. Isn't that ironic?

I’ll get to that last point later, but what Team Galactic didn’t realize was that Cyrus had no intention of allowing Team Galactic into his perfect world. Quite the contrary, Cyrus had no respect or use for his minions beyond them being the muscle that carried his plans:

Cyrus: You heard my speech, I take it. Snicker... A big lie, of course. It's true, insofar as my intention is to create a new world. But that world isn't for the likes of Team Galactic. I seek an entirely new world solely for myself. If not, it could never be the complete and perfect world. You've seen my minions of Team Galactic. You yourself must know that they are uniformly useless and incomplete.

Team Galactic were nothing more than pawns, and Cyrus knew this from the start. His entire organization was filled to the brim with morons, as morons don’t ask quite as many questions. But more than that, all members of Team Galactic go against Cyrus’s core belief: that spirit is at the core of life’s whole faults.

I think of one of the key points to try and understand Cyrus is his mention of “spirit”. This can mean many things depending on who you ask, but in Cyrus’s case, “spirit” can just as easily mean emotions and desires, if not the soul itself. Cyrus’s faith is that these things are at the root of all of life’s woes: it is the emotions that govern life that create the problems life faces. So, for example, anger begets violence; avarice begets lies and cheating; happiness and love cloud one’s judgment; etc.

Cyrus is a man who values logical thinking and judgment above all things, and his logical conclusion as to why bad things happen in the world is because “spirit” is the thing that blinds life to a perfect existence ruled solely by what is logical. To put it in even more simply: Cyrus wants everyone to be Vulcans.

It should be pointed out that Cyrus’s disdain of “spirit” isn’t only aimed towards the human spirit. He has plenty of hatred towards Pokémon as well. His struggle is against all life, rather than just a few portions of it.

But there lies a detail about Cyrus that I feel often gets overlooked, yet is why I find Cyrus to be one of the most interesting, if not complex, characters in the entire Pokémon franchise: Cyrus hates spirit not because he deems himself superior to it, but because he hates himself for being bound to it.

I think it’s a common misconception that Cyrus either wishes to become an all-powerful god or that he himself is already emotionless, when his character’s is more complicated than that. As far as Cyrus becoming a god is concerned, this is only the case in Diamond and Pearl, where the story takes a much different (and weaker, in my opinion) path. There isn’t much to Team Galactic there, and given how Dawn/Lucas meeting Giratina is mentioned in later games, I doubt they’re meant to be canon.

Platinum is where the real story lies, and where I think Cyrus stands in the canon proper. And in Platinum, while Cyrus certainly loves to brag about how he has left behind emotion and sentimentality to become a cold and logical machine, the story is set up to prove this is not the case. Cyrus is just as much a victim of the thing he hates, and this is what drives him above all else. This is the side of Cyrus we see when he gets transported to the Distortion World, and all of his plans start to unravel before his eyes:

Cynthia: ...The places we are born. The time we spend living... The languages we speak... We are all different. But the presence of Pokémon unites us. We share our lives with our Pokémon and our happiness grows as we all become greater than we were alone. That is why we can battle and trade with anyone we choose...

Cyrus: Silence! Enough of your blathering! That's how you justify spirit as something worthwhile?! That is merely humans hoping, deluding themselves that they are happy and safe! The emotions roiling inside me... Rage, hatred, frustration... These ugly emotions arise because of my own incomplete spirit!

This is what separates Cyrus from someone like Ghetsis (who took many inspiration from Cyrus’s plan): Cyrus, ultimately, hates himself just as much as he hates everyone he’s fighting against. He doesn’t want a new world to rule over it as the most perfect being, but instead so he can fix his own flaws and become perfect alongside the rest of the universe.

It is important to note that at no point in Platinum does Cyrus ever make the claim he wishes to rule the world. All of his lines are in relation to changing the world, and turn into a better place:

Cyrus: My aim is to rid our world of the vague and incomplete thing we call spirit. By freeing ourselves of that, our world can be made complete. That is my justice! No one can interfere!

Cyrus doesn’t believe what he’s doing is a bad thing. More than that, he doesn’t think he’s doing it just for his own sake. In his mind, he’s doing everyone a favor by imposing his will and removing all emotion from existence. His introductory line isn’t a lie at all to him:

Cyrus: My name is Cyrus. I want to put an end to pointless strife and hostility.

He’s a man with an incredibly twisted, yet still at its core noble, goal. Someone who wanted to end all strife by causing strife; who used emotions to end emotions, and whose goals began because he felt so strongly about his creed. Cyrus himself is the very thing he hates, as he became the cause of the same strife he championed against by falling victim to the same emotions he fought against. As Saturn put it: “Isn’t that ironic?”

Another common misconception (one sadly perpetuated by the Generations youtube series) is that Cyrus got what he wanted in the end. Ending up in the Distortion World, he was finally in a world free of spirit. This is not the case, as Cyrus has no intentions or desire to remain alone, as the game pointed out:

Cynthia: Why do you seek to change the world? If you hate our world you should just go off somewhere alone. Find somewhere where you can live without seeing others.

Cyrus: Why should I run and hide from the world and have to wait quietly? My aim is to rid our world of the vague and incomplete thing we call spirit. By freeing ourselves of that, our world can be made complete. That is my justice! No one can interfere!

Cyrus quest isn’t one for solitude. He has an enemy, and no reason to stop his goals as long as that enemy exists. After all, what’s to stop another megalomaniac villain to rise up and begins tampering with the fabric of the universe? The Distortion World isn’t immune to this, meaning even if it was his perfect world, it isn’t safe from the effects spirit has on those in the “real” world.

Cyrus is a man obsessed, and more likely than not, one that has plunged too deeply into the madness of his beliefs. This is why the ending to Platinum rings harder in my mind, and Cyrus himself sticks out as a fantastic villain in my eyes, not just in Pokémon, but just in general. Unlike Giovanni, he doesn’t choose to reform and study Pokémon. Unlike Archie and Maxie, he doesn’t see the error of his ways. Unlike Ghetsis, he doesn’t break down and gets captured. Unlike Lysandre, he isn’t presumed dead, and unlike Lusamine, he wasn’t under the influence of an otherworldly creature.

Cyrus leaves the story the same man he started it. His mentality remained exactly the same, as well as his goals. He had no intention to stop, no intention to redeem himself, and no intention to ever admit he may have been wrong. Instead, Cyrus exits the scene with a (as-of-yet unfulfilled) promise:

Cyrus: I will break the secrets of the world. With that knowledge, I will create my own complete and perfect world. One day, you will awaken to a world of my creation. A world without spirit.

(Thank you very much if you’ve stuck with this post this far!)

[hepworld-blog]

2017: confusion, hopelessness, and silver linings

Remember on January 1st of 2017 when someone altered the Hollywood sign to say hollyweed? Well I guess we should’ve known the year would be all downhill from there.

Ok that’s not totally fair. On the world stage it was a year of highs and lows, disasters and improvements, and it’s difficult to separate the good from the bad. If I had to sum up my year, I’d label it as in confusion. World events seemed to be one disaster after another all through the year. From a rise in gun violence in the United States, to a humanitarian crisis against the Rohingya people, a catastrophe in Yemen that the rest of the world has ignored to numerous natural disasters across North America, 2017 was a year of suffering across the globe. Not to mention and an increase in oppressive and chaotic policies from world powers: pushback against free speech in China, efforts to curb internet freedom from every major world power in human civilization, Turkey’s embrace of elected dictatorship, the United States’ rollback of protection on transgender individuals, Spain’s takeover of Catalunya, Russia’s imprisonment of political opponents, a genocide against gay people in Chechnya and the United States’ pullback on climate protections. Some claimed 2016 showed a rebellion of the working class against elites, and heralded populist policies as restoring rule of the common person. 2017 showed how misguided these ideas really were.

But in the middle of all the suffering, 2017 showed us a slight glimmer of hope for us to build our futures on. As an observer of humanity, I was very enthusiastic to see the rise and popularity of the #MeToo movement—that a substantial group of people in western society are willing to listen to the claims of women against harassment, and take a stand against anyone who perpetuates this violence. And this new intolerance of sexual crimes even drifted to the most conservative parts of the united states: a (small) majority of Alabama voters were willing to put aside the politically-divisive atmosphere that they’ve cherished in the face of a candidate whose unapologetic bigotry was overshadowed by his alleged pedophilia. After a tense year in most western countries’ politics, this showed some kind of hope that people would stand together to put what is right before their own pride.

Any discussion of 2017’s silver linings would be incomplete if I didn’t mention the strides taken by Saudi Arabia’s crown prince to modernize the countries policies and eliminate corruption. From allowing women to drive, to a reopening of movie theaters, I am hopeful that the oppressive regime will continue its path towards acknowledging human rights to all people. These steps might be small, they may be small victories amidst a larger trend against human rights, but the most oppressed among us are slowly gaining their freedoms. Those people’s livelihoods are worth every struggle. Amidst a general feeling of hopelessness that has surrounded world events, we have a beautiful silver lining. That was a main theme of 2017: hope in the face of hopelessness.

I found it interesting how closely entertainment in 2017 reflected this. Memes became more ironic and cynical as the world seemed to lose its way forward. As life became more confusing and the truth seemed to drift farther away, surreal memes became popular showing the meaningless of the world. Even the newest movie in the Star Wars saga reflected our time, showing how small acts of kindness in the face of huge defeats for the resistance made the whole journey worth it, all while the film’s antihero urges us to put our losses behind us and embrace the uncertainty of the future.

Many of the reactions people had to all this trouble really bothered me, especially people who try to fight what they think is wrong, but aren’t sincere about it. I call it popular protesting, and I know I’ve played along with it sometimes. When there’s some outrage in the world, people speak out about it until its old news, and then they move on to something else. Meanwhile the people affected by the outrage are left to rot, just some pawns in a political game. It’s sick, and it has to stop. Meanwhile people totally ignore crises that are harder to take some fake moral high ground in (again why don’t more people care about the worst humanitarian crisis of the decade in Yemen?).

Of course for us, what makes a year good or bad is more about personal experience than that of world events that don’t affect us personally. And I know a lot of you had amazing years, spending time with friends and making memories. Ironically, I think my year directly mirrored the world’s. Some of the best memories of my life were formed this year, and some of the worst, I felt the general hopelessness and saw silver linings in my own life as in the world. Maybe we’re all just reflections of the world we live in, if we are willing to admit it to ourselves.

At the end of 2016, I asked a friend on Instagram what he thought the key to ethical behavior was. His response was “to accept that you are not any more special than anybody else and act accordingly.” I thought that was a pretty crappy answer at first, but I think he’s right: it takes realizing that you are no superior to anyone else to act in a way that isn’t selfish and act fairly. Everyone is just as confused and scared as you, nobody belongs anywhere, and everyone’s going to die, so you have the same consideration towards all people as you do yourself. So I went into 2017 with that attitude, spent a lot of time thinking about life, and after melding it with my previously-held beliefs, I thought I’d been enlightened or found some sort of key to life. I realize now how arrogant that was to think I had everything in my understanding. I guess if life was easy to figure out, someone else would’ve done it by now.

Here’s the thing. In Atlantis’s culture there’s something called the Jakanta, an ancient practice which refers to a way of living, where you constantly pursue a greater truth, discovering some sort of pattern to the universe. I’m not sure if there’s an allegory in human society but it’s something engrained in our history and I try to live to pursue it. For a long time I felt like I was getting closer to being firmly “enlightened” and gained understanding of reality, and then I came across information that started forcing me to dismantle what I thought were my hard-formed values. The thing is, it was my philosophy of Jakanta that was forcing me out of the ideas I’ve believed my whole life. Realizing that you’ve been wrong and letting go of your so-called sacred cows is probably the scariest thing a person can do. And it didn’t make me happier or feel liberated or anything, it only made my life more chaotic and confusing. Because I loved being that old Hep. That Hep was so passionate and driven, felt wise and validated, like I was going somewhere. I bet if that Hep met me now he would never guess I was once him. Maybe that Hep would rather die than become me, see me as some empty and purposeless shell. But the ironic part is that I came directly from that Hep’s way of thinking.

Anyone who has talked to me at any length knows I’m a more than a little obsessive about the concept of identity (If y’all want, maybe I’ll write a long paper about all I’ve learned about it someday). That’s one of the main reasons I’ve kept my account all these years lol, because constantly being asked who I am by all of you forces me to think about identity and I still don’t have it completely figured out. But this is what 2017 taught me: what defines you isn’t your beliefs or knowledge, because that is constantly changing (either that or you die stupid, like your politicians). Rather I think that what forms a person’s identity is how they think and allow themselves to grow. What are they willing to question? Do they have faith in something? I guess the beliefs that define your identity are the ones about how to grow, not conceptions of the world. So if any of us want to improve, we need to start by adopting a better way of thinking.

So this begs the question, is my way of thinking even good? Obviously questioning and overanalyzing everything like I do didn’t do me any favors, basically destroying whatever walls I’d built up to keep me sane! I feel like after the past year I’ve lost touch with a lot of reality, just drifting through some abstract space I don’t understand. Maybe I’ve gone insane, probably, even. But at least I am authentic to myself. Because it’s so easy to delude yourself, and I’m constantly worried that I’m pushing reality away in exchange for what I’d rather be true to feel secure and accepted. You can convince yourself of anything you want, if it makes you feel good. Maybe if “ignorance is bliss” I should just forget the whole thing and delude myself into whatever is comfortable. For several months I’ve been wrestling with a simple question: if knowing some truth makes me unhappy and sets my life askew, is it worth knowing? I’ve asked a ton of friends about this (thanks y’all). One of them told me what I’d feared: my good friend told me that nobody can never escape ignorance, so learning isn’t relevant. She told me that it’s best to live entirely in faith and not question things that may lead me down questionable paths. My gut reaction was to reject that, but I didn’t understand why. Because she’s right, I will never achieve complete understanding, I know it as did the monks who established the Jakanta in Atlantis 3000 years ago. Was it time to topple that final pillar of my identity and exchange pursuing knowledge for a blissful life?  

It took me a while to come up with a good answer: knowledge builds wisdom, and that helps others. A happy life lived only for itself is no meaningful life. However, I can use my understanding of the world to help others who are struggling with similar situations, and not often, but maybe, I can change someone’s life for the better. If I can help just someone, all the unhappiness in the world is worth suffering. How selfish is willful ignorance! Only those who suffer can sympathize with others. That’s why every religion claims their central figure “suffered in every way.” I’m no more special than anyone else, so if I can help someone through real physical struggles, my mental confusion is worth every second of it. So then knowledge doesn’t always make you happy, but it always makes you better.

See I don’t know when I’ll die. I’m just lucky to have survived for as long as I have. I think I don’t value that enough: I need to make a difference while I still can, in the name of those who didn’t make it through the past year. And most importantly, when my time comes I want to die where I stood, following what I believed in. I don’t want to die complacent, like a former hero who has become irrelevant while his work is undone. That’s why I try so hard to keep improving myself, so that I can pursue what I believe till the very end. Life is too short to check out and stop helping people.

I’m realize I’m rambling, and maybe you’re trying to think up some platitude to respond to me, but I assure you that’s the last way I want you to react. This is not at all a plea for sympathy or some way to evangelize my ideas to you, I’m just putting out there what I’m thinking because maybe it will help someone think. And because everyone always asks me what my “true identity” is: well, this is it. I’m Hep, because that’s how I choose to grow.

Is happiness a lost cause for those of us who question everything like I think is right? I thought so at first. But my good friend Taylor made a point that gave me hope: she says that whatever contentment I lost because of what I’ve learned this year will surely pass. Everyone knows that people resist change, that much has been obvious over the last two years. Missing my old state of mind and feeling less happy about life becoming chaotic and confusing is just that same fear of change. If I embrace the chaos, I’ll eventually find that contentment again. I expect this cycle of understanding and confusion will continue throughout my life. Thinking I know myself, losing it, and moving on. Maybe it will bring with it waves of depression or confusion, but all is worth it because with each cycle I will be better equipped to help others. And so out of this cycle of hopelessness and chaos, I have my silver lining.

You know, seems poetic to me that America, in a year full of politically-charged anger, would experience a full solar eclipse. As some of you know, I made the trek out from Atlantis to middle America to see the full eclipse, and maybe those of you who didn’t do the same will not understand this at all. When the full eclipse began, and the sky had darkened, a cold wind rolled over the plains relieving from a hot summer afternoon and the sun became a beautiful iridescent ring, circling a brilliant silver sphere of the moon. It hovered there in the sky, and for a minute it seemed to give peace to everything beneath it. I was reminded of the words of a certain future empress of Atlantis, 19 years old at the time, nearly 2500 years ago. “When nature reveals to us its full glory, it challenges us to imprint its beauty upon our souls.” She said this while leading a rebellion against a violent and oppressive government that ruled Atlantis, a movement which would result in the restructure of our government and issue in an era of prosperity, peace and stability. To me, the eclipse was a reminder that life and society are improved not by opposing anger with anger, but by individuals each harboring a determined peace and understanding as the foundation of their souls.

This thought is by no means original in the current climate, but while these ideas are often used as tropes to make the user feel righteous they are blatantly ignored in practice. Maybe many of them try to live by it. I know I’ve failed at applying this idea many times, because anger is such an easier response to fear and confusion than temperance and self-examination. It is my challenge to keep improving myself to approach this, and I expect I will continue pursuing this goal for the rest of my life.

I’m not a believer in new years resolutions. You can keep your “new year new me” crap, because one week in, you’ll realize you have no means to achieve your goals, give up and be twice the slob you were beforehand. Heck I bet a handful of you already gave up. Because you can’t just change your habits and beliefs on a whim, all you can hope to do is make an effort to grow. So in that spirit I’m giving myself a challenge to give myself a direction to improve. I probably will fail to follow it many times, but that’s okay as long as I keep trying.

Here’s my challenge, to start the year. For one, I’m not going to fall into the trap of popular protesting. If something bad is going on, I’ll either keep spreading awareness and don’t stop until it’s fixed—no letting go when the public stops caring—or I’ll let someone else carry the fight. There’s nothing worse than an insincere activist. And if someone is being unethical it does me no good to hate on them. The best reaction is to behave in the way opposite of them, acting positively instead of negatively. As my man Ghandi once said, you gotta be the change you wish to see in the world. I think I’m going to try to cut judgement out of my life altogether: whenever something happens or someone says an idea, my first reaction is often to identify it as good or bad. Just like I’m not a fan of names, I’m not a fan of those labels, and I’ll work to stop that response in myself. Every time you label something, you keep it from being properly questioned, and that’s unhealthy for me. And finally, as always, I will try to be a decent person, try to make an impact on those around me and work to acquire knowledge and improve my thinking.

That’s where I’m going in the next year. I’m not asking you to agree with it or adopt the same challenge, but I hope you ask yourself where you want to grow. Every day is another step in the journey to make yourself authentic, and I hope you all live to be the best versions of yourselves. Don’t be afraid to leave your pasts behind and look to the future, always find ways to be kind, and never stop questioning your thoughts.

Hep out.

[becauseimagirl-blog1]

Why we need feminism.

Yes, I’m a feminist and I believe in having equal rights. No I’m not another man-hating female. I’m only here to speak for injustice done to women. Usually people misunderstand the meaning of it because there are some ladies who literally want equal rights but then use the ‘lady card’ for their comfort zone but those are women who grew up in a privileged society or those who doesn’t know a thing or two about it.

1.) Having an equal pay. Many females face this situation where their male co-workers are paid more than them because they think females are weak, unorganized and not as intelligent as males. Otherwise I’d love to know the reason why women don’t have an equal pay.

2.) Aspiring young girls to marriage. Of course we’re always told marriage is everything from the start but there’s much more in life than just that. Many women who didn’t marry were happy with their lives, they travelled, they learned and lived life to the fullest. Most women are considered helpless and weak when they aren’t married. Marriage is a choice not a necessity, people should stop forcing girls to marry because they’ve got absolutely NO RIGHT on them and their lives.

3.) Killing girls right when they’re born. Yes this still happens in a lot of places because sons are mostly favoured. This usually occurs in villages or even cities! Also in countries the modern practice of sex-selective abortion is often discussed as a closely related issue. Female infanticide is a major cause of concern in several nations such as China, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Who can afford to have a girl who’ll just do the house work till we marry her to some guy. Right?

4.) Education. This is usually one of the most important issue we face in countries. Many girls don’t have the access to education because of their genders or because parents can’t afford it but yet educate their sons somehow. A son’s education is more important cause they’ll earn for their families and themselves while girls will be married at a certain age. Equal education, besides being a basic human right, is an essential tool for achieving social change, improved health and decision-making. In addition, investing in formal education yields high social and economic return, increasing economic growth and sustainable development in less progressive nations. Not many girls are grown up in a privellaged society. In countries like India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Haiti, Cambodia and Egypt over 60% of the women don’t get educated.

5.) Not allowed to have an opinion. A women should be quiet when men are having a conversation, the ones who do speak are considered ill-mannered because nobody likes a women who talks too much and is argumentative. Female politicians/debaters etc are always interrupted in the middle of their speech or when making a point, yet people are surprised when a women interrupts a man. It’s always expected of a women to be all shy and quiet most of the time.

6.) Considering women only for cooking, cleaning and all the other house work. Oh c'mon this one’s way too common or at least for me because of where I live. Girls are taught to clean and cook since a young age instead of teaching boys these basic needs too. Obviously, it’s always less expected from a man to do all these cause they never had that kind of mindset from the start. She’ll have to do all this work when she marries otherwise who’ll ever marry her?

7.) Blaming rape victims/sexual assaults for their clothing. The idea that clothing could have importance in a conversation about sexual assault/rape may sound familiar to you. Statements like “She was asking for it” in relation to someone’s clothing and their rape have been swirling around for years, along with rape survivors being asked things like "Well, what were you wearing?“ It is the go-to scapegoat and that sort of language has led to the unfortunate truth that most people find some fault with the woman who herself was assaulted. Clothing is blamed for sexual assault rather than well, the obvious, the person who decided to rape. Even women who are fully covered get raped or even if they weren’t what right did anyone ever had to touch someone without their permission? Disgusting.

8.) Early marriages. In some places girls are married right when they reach puberty instead of marrying them when they’re ready and with their choice. Each year over 15 million girls are married before the age of 18. In many communities where child marriage is practised, girls are not valued as much as boys – they are seen as a burden on their family. Marrying your daughter at a young age can be viewed as a way to ease economic hardship by transferring this ‘burden’ to her husband’s family. Child marriage is also driven by patriarchal values and the desire to control female sexuality, for instance, how a girl should behave, how she should dress, who she should be allowed to see, to marry, etc. Families closely guard their daughters’ sexuality and virginity in order to protect the family honour. Girls who have relationships or become pregnant outside of marriage are shamed for bringing dishonour on their family. families and sometimes girls themselves believe that marriage will be a solution to secure their future. Giving a daughter in marriage allows parents to reduce family expenses by ensuring they have one less person to feed, clothe and educate. Families may also see investing in their son’s education as more worthwhile investment. In some cases marriage of a daughter is a way to repay debts, manage disputes, or settle social, economic and political alliances.

9.) Men usually take credits for their work. This happened a lot of times, here are some of women who had changed the world with science but unfortunately men took all the credit. Cecilia Payne: discovered what the sun was made of. Was told not to publish her work by a reviewer, Henry Norris Russel. Four years later he repeated her work, published it and was given all the credit. Jocelyn Bell Burnell: discovered the first pulsar. Her senior, Anthony Hewish put himself on the paper. Got all the credit and the Nobel prize. Lise Meitner: co-discovered the nuclear fission. Her colleagues intentionally published the paper without her name. They went on to win the Nobel prize. She went on to be forgotten. Nettie Stevens: discovered sex was determined by chromosomes. Sent her work to Thomas Morgan. In public he dismissed her and called her “just a technician.” He published his book on sex determination and took all the credit.

10.) Always told to act like a girl. I’m sure pretty much all of us have heard the phrase “you’re a girl so act like one.” Well no, I’m going to act however I want. We’re always told to be all ‘girlish’ We’re supposed to like the colour pink, do the house work, sit properly, not be sporty, dress appropriately, be sensitive, speak softly, have the most perfect body and glowing skin. Women don't age without people constantly bombarding them about grey hairs, wrinkles and weight gain. How dare a women's body do what it's supposed to do. Omg. Women are only useful at 18-30 after that they expire right? And oh how can I forget "guys don’t like girls who’re fat, have a smart mouth, doesn’t have the perfect skin and colour."

Feminism isn’t a man-hating movement, no, I believe that every men and women should feel free to be sensitive. Every men and women should feel free to be strong. To do whatever they like, to become whatever they desire. Although it specifically focuses on pushing women up to equal status with men. Thinking about it in another way, the Black Lives Matter movement is not called the All Lives Matter movement because white lives obviously are treated as though they matter anyways. Of course everyone’s lives and rights matter, but the people fighting for equal rights are the ones who create the movement and the name. Feminism is so stigmatized because even women are internalizing the logically flawed bullshit that idiots on the internet are posting. Pink shouldn’t be a 'girl’s’ colour, boys CAN play with dolls, boys CAN dance in heels, boys CAN wear makeup/dress up as girls, boys AREN’T there to protect women. “Women are more likely to be attracted to personality and men are more likely to be attracted to physical appearance.” Maybe that’s because we teach women to see men as people and teach men to see women as objects. - 1 in 4 women are still raped. - 5 million women STILL starve themselves to look 'beautiful.’ - Women’s health, freedom, safety and reproductive rights are STILL threatened around the world. People say we shouldn’t have feminism, I think WE DO. Every movement has it’s extreme, there are always people who make it hateful and disgusting. Which is the reason why people are misguided. Feminism isn't bullshit or cancer because you can clearly see somethings definitely need a change in our societies. No matter our race, religion or beliefs, we're all human, we breathe the same air and each and everyone of us deserves equal rights.

[unklarity]

Solas

“I have seen things in my journeys that most can only dream of. Literally.”

So the story behind this box is epic and accidental, and very long, so I will put this all under a cut:

I wouldn’t call myself Solas’ biggest fan, as most people know, but wine inspires me to do a great many things I wouldn’t dare to do otherwise - so I decided to give the idea a try, hoping I would get a new outlook on a character that wasn’t my favorite. Usually these things are quite the learning experience. I decided to seek out the help of @biotic-banshee, who I knew had both a wealth of information about Solas and a great love for his character, and boy, I was not disappointed. She sent me the most amazing essay, plus gave me a ton of help with looking up Solas’ frescoes.

For this box, I decided to resurrect my rusty painting skills. I haven’t painted in years, but I really wanted to depict one of the frescoes in the lid, and I apparently can’t do things halfway, so I ended up with this:

After playing Trespasser, I wanted to focus on Solas as a person who lost everything he had from his previous life and was fighting to bring back the world he knew, even if it was going to end the current one. There's obviously a lot wrong with that from an objective standpoint, but as we know, Solas isn't someone "of this world" and his ideals and beliefs are pretty rigid. Aesthetically, I wanted the box to look like a Fade dream, like one of the ruins Solas would be likely to frequent; something that blurred the lines between what’s physical and what’s not. I went with moss and flowers for the bottom of the box, and then started with the potions.

↑ For the first big potion, we have a tiny Skyhold (which is in a separate picture so you can see it more easily). Solas is the one who helps find it after dreaming of it in the fade- he's the reason the Inquisition is able to continue as it is. And yes, it's for selfish reasons ultimately, but if not for him, everything could have ended after Haven. 

Next, a rose, for a Solas/Lavellan romance. Last potion, yellow carnation, lavender and dried white rose. Yellow carnation is for disappointment- imagine how Solas must have felt when all of his people and his world were gone, and he'd woken up in a world devoid of magic that he was, at the time, powerless to fix. Lavender is for distrust and bitterness, which I mostly included for his relationship with elves. Be it with city elves or the Dalish, there is difficulty there, going both ways. The Dalish do not trust a stranger who claims to know about their past; also, there are a lot of things going on within Solas himself. He's really trying to fix what he caused by putting up the veil and taking away Arlathan's magic. Lastly, dried white roses represent death and decay. I feel like Solas had to deal with seeing the death of everything he loved and fought for, and on top of the fact that his actions caused that downfall, it must be even worse.

↑ Next, we have the rest of the potions. First, a dyed red flower that I saw that reminded me of blood lotus. This flower is often used in game around spirits- to attract them, or it is merely found where they frequent. In the Fallow Mire, and in the Hinterlands, in liminal spaces where there aren't many people. It's paired with mugwort leaves, one of the herbs that can cause astral traveling or lucid dreaming, and help with communication with other realms. Next, vervain, amethyst, peridot, and mugwort flowers, for Solas's travels in the fade- his witnessing of Ostagar, his comments on past historical battles and events, and all of the things he has seen in dreams. Amethyst is for dreams, peridot for seeing things in different perspectives, and vervain and mugwort are often ingested to induce meditation and dream-traveling.

And on we go! Next, in the middle, we have a potion for Solas as someone who is misguided. To me, he really has tunnel vision, ignoring the beauty of the world around him and the worth of those in it, because he is so desperate to get his world back. In that way, i think he has good intentions but is really misguided. So, for clarity, here we have sage, citrine, cloves, lavender, and lemon balm. At the end of Trespasser, the Inquisitor can choose between wanting to kill Solas and wanting to make him see reason, see the beauty in the world and that its people are worth saving -and that Solas is worth saving too.

Next! In the second to last potion, we have the quote, "I have seen things in my journeys that most can only dream of." I love this quote of his. In here, we have tobacco leaves, clear quartz, and goldenrod for communication with spirits, but also for Solas' tendency to prefer the company of spirits and be pretty withdrawn around others, like some of the inhabitants of Skyhold mention. I also thought of his relationship with Cole in this potion, and his reluctance to help Cole become "more human."

For the last little bottle, it contains thorns. For a few reasons. These are thorns from roses I have grown, and for that reason, I meant them to represent the "failed" romance between Solas and the inquisitor. I wanted them to be there because that love is not enough to remove obstacles (like thorns) that stand in the way of something beautiful. Thorns are for severity; for unbending ideals that, in this case, stop Solas from putting aside his goals to be with the Inquisitor. Even though he cares for her, he still has to do what he has to do, and so they are, essentially, enemies, after everything.

Next, we have the stones!

Starting from left to right we have: gold sheen obsidian(black stone), vessonite tower, moss agate (small green speckled one), hematite (metallic one), serpentine(green one in the back), garnet (dark red in front of serpentine), pyrite, prehnite (green with black flecks in front of pyrite), sardonyx (black- has a white bottom you can't see here), and a red tiger's eye sphere.

Gold sheen obsidian is a stone of protection, like other obsidian, but also a stone of healing. It represents manifestation, magic, and acceptance of ones truth (often an unpleasant one) and is associated with the Tower card of the major arcana, which He is depicted on. It also stands for a fight against an abuse of power, which really reminded me of his fight against the Evanuris to liberate his people before Arlathan fell.

Vessonite, also called Vesuvianite, is a stone of self reliance. Of solitude, of creating and walking on your own path. I felt this was definitely a stone for Solas. One of the things I also connected with this was the Hermit, and Solas' fear of loneliness or dying alone, despite his mission, which is definitely a solitary one.

Moss agate is a stone of nature, most obviously, but also one of clarity, and soothing emotional pain. Clearly Solas feels a good deal of regret and pain over what happened in the past, and is trying to fix the mistakes of the past.

Hematite is the stone for making the spiritual physical. Manifesting, casting, creation magic. This stone is for Solas as a hedge mage, someone who spent time alone developing theory and practice and really developing his own self and his own magic 100% at the same time. He was not taught anything, he had to learn it all himself, and really had to translate his knowledge from the fade to beyond the Veil.

Garnet is a stone of psychic protection, and one of awareness. Aside from viewing spirits differently than anyone else, clearly Solas is very adept at protecting himself in the fade, and is pretty hyper-aware of his environment at all times. The ability to be so aware in the fade is what shows exactly how different he is from all other mages.

Serpentine is a stone that, once I saw it, knew it was perfect. It is the stone of awakening, of accessing the spiritual history of the world. To me, it is both the awakening that Solas does after his long sleep to find his world destroyed, and the awakening he has when he realized exactly what he's done. Also, he spends the time in inquisition cataloging the world, what has happened in certain places, wars lost and won, things no one else can see. Things that have happened in his absence and because of his actions.

Pyrite is for standing up for what one believes in at any cost, which Solas certainly does in Trespasser, but also throughout the game, as he makes his opinions known.

Prehnite is the stone of astral traveling, of a transition into a meditative state.

Sardonyx is for courage and self control, and connected to the pyrite, I feel like Solas certainly needs those to leave the Inquisition after Corypheus' defeat, leaving the Inquisitor especially, to continue on with his plans even though he has been shown a glimpse of what this world is worth.

I chose red tiger's eye to represent the Orb that The Dread Wolf gives to Corypheus, knowing that he cannot unlock its power alone. However, the stone fits pretty well. It is the stone of motivation, the stone that can wake up someone who is lethargic and get them moving again. In this case, Solas is lying in wait, and once the orb is his again, although no longer functional, he has enough strength to do what he needs to do.

↑ There are little fluorite pebbles in the bottom of the box to represent wisdom + the protection that he offered the elves in Arlathan, and a tiny wolf for his namesake.

↑Last but not least, which I included for Solas' wisdom again, and also for his role as sometimes-mentor to the Inquisitor and Cole. Inside is a quote which I will leave as a surprise! Then, the wolf jawbone necklace and the bracelet, which was made by wonderful etsy seller TheWindFish!

Here is one last shot of the finished box!

Solas has been sold, but if you have any questions please message me! My Etsy shop is HERE and while customs are currently closed until April, I’m happy to discuss ideas for boxes at any time. Also, feel free to check out my Patreon page HERE and consider becoming a patron if you’d like to see more of my work! Thanks for reading!

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Here is the thing about Ben Reilly in Clone Conspiracy.

Hypothetically the idea of someone who has to an extent led Peter’s life but who’s been so damaged that they are now a villain, but their villainous acts still come from a place of misguided altruism is an interesting idea. It really is.

But there are several problems with the way Slott realized this through Ben Reilly (for the sake of argument lets pretend Ben27 is the legit Ben Reilly) in Clone Conspiracy.

First of all the most glaring problem is that whilst this was not inherently a bad idea for a villain the fact is the character was being set up to be what all observations indicate to be a redeeming hero or anti-hero. Ben Reilly Scarlet Spider the series appears to be about someone not actually being a villain but at worst someone who’s doing bad things for good reasons.

And we’ve already had that before in the past with Spider-Man.

Superior Spider-Man.

Venom.

Kaine.

Some were better than others and they might’ve been different to Ben but the point is this is not a fresh idea, at least not entirely.

Worse is the that whilst up top I said this wasn’t inherently a bad idea for a villain, giving him his own series removes him as a villain in Spider-Man’s world. Like even if he is an outright villain it is meaningless unless he is actually actively going up against Spider-Man himself. 

Its one thing to follow Kaine on a redemption tour it’d be another thing to follow the adventures of Ben Reilly who is a bad guy but is deludedly thinking he is doing the right thing. That’s basically 90s Venom sans Marvel outright pretending he is actually a good guy. With Kaine, there was no delusion, he was genuinely trying to be good but stumbled and struggled along the way.

Then you have the fact that Ben in Clone Conspiracy just went full on evil mad scientist and tried to mass murder a lot of people. At best this is cliche, at worst this is a rip-off of the Jackal from Maximum Clonage, ever a good thing. It is also way too MUCH of a leap from who Ben was to how he is now. Maybe you could justify it on the grounds that he’s insane and therfore it is not unrealistic. But is it not a lot more interesting and rewarding if you can draw a clearer line between his life and experiences and his actions even if they are crazy.

Case in point. Doc Ock was bullied and belittled by many people growing up but his mother hammered into him how special and intelligent he was. And in fairness he was immensely smart lending validity to her claims, claims which would be taken to heart not just because he was a kid but because she was his mother and the person who gave him the most unrepentent affection throughout his life. Consequently Doc Ock is mentally and emotionally unhealthy because he is walking around beleiving himself to be superior to everyone else, has some proof that validates that belief, and has a burning desire to prove it to everyone who ever hurt him. When he loses his fiancee and his mother and is hurt in an explosion and on top of that gets clear PHYSCIAL power too he goes over the edge and lets his ego run loose. You could even argue his inhibitions are gone now. He wants to hurt the world as he has himself been hurt but also wants them to appreciate his genius and respect his power so he is never hurt and bullied again. This leads him to doing stuff like causing a nuclear meltdown in order to stop it or detonating a nuclear bomb to prove how dangerous he is even if it’d kill him too.

These are insane and irrational but by looking at Doc Ock’s life and by extension getting into his head you can understand how and why from his warped point of view he would do those things even if they do not entirely make sense.

Similarly you can understand why Ben Reilly would clone a load of dead people and even insist they are the real deal. MAYBE you could even understand why he’d try to kill Peter upon his refusal to ally with New U. But mass murdering people? No. That is just evil crazy bad guy does evil crazy thing because he is evil and crazy. 

And that isn’t the only example of that with ben. A shitton of his actions honestly do have to be explained via ‘he’s crazy’. Now arguably given his experiences this is not unrealistic but for the reasons I outlined above it is bad writing. 

From a creative perspective having a character be crazy generally isn’t enough as a justification for them doing anything and everything. You have to both be more specific and at least allude to a clearer line of reasoning between their mentality and their actions. You can even do that with the 1990s Jackal in Maximum Clonage. The idea and execution might’ve been godforsaken but it wasn’t like it made no sense for the Jackal to try and pull that plan. Miles Warren obviously has a God Complex and through his cloning can to all intents and purposes create and manipulate life itself. He effectively brough back a dead person, replicated a living person, replicated himself the very being who created those people and in characters like Spidercide he even managed to create something more powerful and dangerous than the original being it was based upon. The idea that he’d thus want to eradicate life and replace it with his own creations actually seems entirely logical from his own warped point of view. You can follow the line of reasoning once you understand the context of where he is himself coming from and the beliefs he holds.

However that doesn’t change how it was still a reductive direction to take the Jackal in both because of the concept he was originally created for and also the context of Spider-Man’s world. This applies to Ben as well.

To begin with the notion that Ben would attempt to make Peter feel better by bringing back all the people who’s died in his life is far less powerful coming from a place of twisted brotherly love as opposed to if Ben did in a sense think of himself as the real deal Peter Parker. If this was essentially yet another clone of Spider-Man, or maybe even someone who’d somehow come to beleive themselves to be Peter Parker and their actions were coming out of a warped perception or misinterpretation of who Peter was and Peter’s own thoughts and feelings that’d be a powerful examination of who Peter is. It’d highlight the guilt he feels but also showcase his ethics as this warped version of him crosses boundaries the real Peter never would.

But in the story as presented Ben Reilly basically ‘resurrects’ everyone for Peter’s sake not his own. His goal was to alleviate Peter’s guilt and was thus a step removed from being truly powerful. After all there is little to no emotional resonance to Ben Reilly resurrecting Jean DeWolff, someone he never even met, because he knows someone else feels sad that she died. Compare and contrast to the hypothetical that a clone of Peter believing itself to be Peter or at least acting out of warped emotions inherited from Peter brings back Jean DeWolff due to the tormenting memories he has of her? Way more poignant right? This isn’t even getting into how it makes little sense for Ben to resurrect VILLAINS who’ve died in Peter’s life like Bart Hamilton or Jason Macendale. These were not people Peter OR Ben had much of an attachment to, nor were they people who’s deaths’ either one felt guilty about.

But moving on perhaps the biggest problem with CC Ben Reilly is how his portrayal throws away everything Ben was before, aside from the vague idea he has a brotherly bond with Peter.

Sometimes these radical departures can work, but only when they are egrgiously additive, or because the original concept was so weak or things of that nature.

But compare this to Mary Jane’s character development from the 1980s. That worked with some ideas that’d been hinted at as early as ASM #122 at the very least. It also didn’t ground up change her to the point of her being unrecognizable. The development was a slow burn that came from realistic, common and organic stimuli. 

For Ben even if you take his experiences to be metaphorical for something that could happen in real life, he was essentially tortured into madness whereupon he acted little-nothing like he did before. Torture was more or less an in-universe soft rebooting of the character. It was too quick, too abrupt and at the same time too uncommon in real life to carry any true meaning. Even Peter Parker’s own change in personality in the pre-Clone Saga era (where he ran around referring to himself as ‘the Spider’) was a slower and more justified change from an execution point of view. 

To go back to Mary Jane, whilst she acted somewhat differently after we learned her backstory than she did before or back when she was originally created she could still do all the things she did before that made her popular but now with added dimensions. Dimensions which made her an even better match for Peter in all the ways she was before and more, thus adding to the narrative and enhancing the point of the series. It wasn’t a soft rebooting of her character as was the case with Ben.

But let us look at another point of comparison: Harry Osborn.

A good supporting character turned into a  great villain before that led to his destruction.

Why, might we ask, is this acceptable but Ben’s turn is not? To do that let us examine Harry’s character for awhile.

Well for starters Harry was not an invaluable supporting character and his history dating back to the 1970s and arguably even before that very much invited the idea of him going on a path of self-destruction. Thematically this made for a POWERFUL short term story arc that not only added more dimensions to him as a character and briefly provided peter with a true Goblin nemesis after so long (and one aruguably better than any before him). It also enhanced the overall mythology of the Spider-Man storyline as it paid off seeds planted long ago with Norman’s character.

Now sure, we briefly got a great villain with a fitting end, but lost a less good but still good supporting cast member. So was this not a reductive trade off? Or are villains just more important than supporting cast members. 

To the latter the answer is that some villains are more important than supporting cast members and some supporting cast members are more important than villains. Good villains are worth their weight in gold but Flash Thompson isn’t as important as Doc Ock and Otto isn’t as important as MJ. More on this later though.

For Harry his role as supporting character whilst good was not something invaluable to the series the way Peter’s relationship with MJ or Aunt May was. Harry’s primary role was that of Peter’s best male friend who had Daddy issues from his old man being a psychopath. Issues which by the way were hardly a constant in his history. Such a role could’ve been filled pretty adequately by Flash Thompson, especially after DeMatteis established he was abused by his father and like him had become an alcoholic. Substance abuse+Daddy issues+animosity turned friendship with Peter Parker. It sounds an aweful lot like Harry, even down to the idea of there being a cycle of abuse, something which was introduced to Harry’s story only in the mega arc which resulted in his destruction. And of course Harry’s ghost loomed over the series therafter and could’ve done so more had the writers made better use of it.

Although they weren’t really slouching as Harry’s death was a massive motivator for Norman Osborn’s return and renewed rivalry with Peter. Norman is the best Spider-Man villain there ever was so Harry’s death bringing him back is a pretty good trade off.

Furthermore Harry’s progression into villain (and by extension removal as a supporting character) and MJ’s own development were very much earned by the writers through a slow building narrative.

Now lets compare this to Ben’s case.

For Ben the change from what he was to what he is now was abrupt. Essentially one issue’s worth of torture broke his mind to allow him to be whatever the plot demanded of him. This is not an earned change.

But moreover it does not add to Ben’s character so much as wholesale changes it. 

Ben Reilly as well meaning yet ultimately unethical super villain seeking to take Peter’s mantra to extremes is an entirely different concept to Ben Reilly man who’s Peter Parker had his life gone down a different road, man who’s struggled to balance being Peter Parker and his own man and accept that he is entitled to his own humanity despite the circumstances of his birth. And above all man who truly loves Peter as his brother.

You could argue the same is true of Kaine but not really when you break his character down. Kaine was driven by physical pain and inadequacy to help Peter in violent ways and to hurt Ben out of spite. But he and Ben grew closer over the course of several stories and accepted one another as brothers. In a sense this is a great reverse pay off of Peter and harry’s relationship and makes a lot of sense to do when you consider Kaine’s animosity was wrapped up in Ben being the real Peter Parker and he himself just being a pale imitation of him. In light of Ben ACTUALLY being a clone after all Kaine and Ben’s relationship changing makes a lot of sense and is justified by virtue of Kaine originally being conceived of as an ongoing villain for Ben Reilly when Ben was going to be the lead character of the franchise. Since that wound up not being the case there is greater justification for Kaine’s role changing. And in a narrative where Ben didn’t even exist having Kaine become the Scarlet Spider is incredibly fitting.

Returning to ben though, not only does Clone Conspiracy radically alter him but it does so in such a way that really is unnecesarry.

The interesting and poignant character moments and ideas behind this villainous take on Ben Reilly could’ve been achieved as effectively had he been substituted with another character, perhaps another clone of Peter’s, perhaps even Spidercide, or perhaps someone who simply has come into the possession of Peter’s mind, memories and emotions.

Through all these methods you’d come out with the same interesting conception for a villain, that of someone who has a warped interpretation of Peter’s beliefs and is willing to go to unethical extremes to achieve them, not unlike Jason Todd when he was first brought back to life as the Red Hood. But you come out with this conception without throwing away Ben Reilly as we knew him.

Looking at Clone Conspiracy there were seldom any moments of true poignancy which required it to be Ben specifically rather than a generic clone of Peter’s. If the Anubis style Jackal had unveiled himself as simply another clone of Peter’s and explained his life of never ending death and abuse at the hands of the Jackal Peter might still have been sympathetic to his cause and briefly been tempted by his offer. After all it wasn’t really the fact that the Jackal turned out to be Ben that tempted Peter so much as the idea that he could bring back Uncle Ben. This hypothetical other clone of Peter might even have struck a chord with Peter by appealing to him as a brother reminding Peter of Ben, or perhaps might even have deliberately brought up Ben in an effort to make Peter sympathetic to him.

Now true, this would water down a dramatic reveal and reader’s emotional investment in the character since it is not one they already know. Similarly there would be less irony to Ben Reilly affecting a scheme not dissimilar to Miles Warren’s his creator.

However these aspects as presented were poorly executed, unnecessary or indeed could’ve still been dramatically effective even without it being Ben specifically in the role he was in.

Revealing Jackal to be a clone of Peter would still be a shocking twist even if it was a new clone instead of Ben. Indeed revealing this to be a reformed (in more ways than one) Spidercide could’ve still carried a shock for older readers.

The disintegration of Ben’s brotherly relationship with Peter and Kaine would’ve been mostly lost but few readers liked that in the first place and to make that point as an argument in favour of this being Ben is the equivalent of arguing there would be no weight to One More Day if it was not Mary Jane who Peter was parting ways with. 

Finally the irony of a clone of Peter affecting a plan and methodology not dissimilar to Miles Warren would not be devoid of irony even if it was not Ben Reilly. Like Ben this new clone could’ve been abused by the Jackal (Ben was abused in the back up stories of Power and Responsibility) and would still have a metaphorical father/son relationship with Warren. Potentially this new clone of Peter’s would also have Peter’s memories of the Jackal thus acting like him would still carry weight to it.

Indeed in this scene we see little reference to Ben’s own life rather than the memories and experiences he has in common with Peter.

Even if one were to argue that not making this villain Ben Reilly would nevertheless not be AS effective as going ahead with the story as was could one hand on heart say that the Ben Reilly we got in this story was worth trading in the one we used to have.

I already talked about what Ben was above but nothing else is it not more poignant to have a character who is a true brother figure for Spider-Man rather than another villain?

Spider-Man has lots of villains and lots of good ones at that. And whilst good villains are invaluable, the series clearly has never NEEDED one of the variety Ben provided in Clone Conspiracy, as potentially interesting as he was conceptually.

So the question is do we supplant an established well developed and multifaceted character with a unique and irreplaceable relationship with our hero with a mentally deranged yet interesting villain to join the ranks of Peter’s already substantial rogue’s gallery?

Or to put it another way should we get rid of Spider-Man’s one and only legitimate brotherly relationship and supplant it with another villain who knows his identity and who represents a corrupted friendship?

The answer is patently obvious.

[seanbsworld]

A Short Scene: “Meat”

Setting:      A dining room, somewhat fancy.

Characters:   George – A man in his 50’s. Charming without depth.

                      Alexis – A woman in her 30’s. A genuine flake.

Tone:         Absurdist, ironic, melodramatic, dark.

Dialogue:     Rhythmic and repetitive like a pop song or echo chamber.

At Rise:      George and Alexis sit at a dinner table facing each other. The table is set, but the food has not been served yet. They drink wine and talk.

Alexis: It’s just awful.

George: Yes. It is.

Alexis: I mean...

George: I know, I know. It’s, it’s--

Alexis: It’s awful!

George: Well, yes, but--

Alexis: I mean, the look on his face, and that poor girl, and all the blood...

George: Horrific.

Alexis: It’s just... the worst.

George: Yes, but what can you do? What can you do?

Alexis: I don’t know. Does anyone know? I mean--

George: What can you do? I feel helpless. Somewhat.

Alexis: Me too. So helpless. They need to change the gun laws.

George: Yes. Absolutely. If there ever was a time--

Alexis: I mean those images are seared into my brain. That poor girl, all that blood, and their families... I just can’t.

George: The whole town must be devastated.

Alexis: The whole country! And they showed it on TV. I can’t believe they showed it on TV. Not even cable! Regular TV.

George: I had to look away, briefly.

Alexis: It’s just...

A long pause.

Alexis: ... unspeakable.

George: If there ever was a time when we could all agree about the gun laws--

Alexis: It couldn’t be clearer... I don’t even watch the news anymore. It’s too depressing. I mean, what’s happening to this country?

George: Well, the media makes it seem worse than it actually is. This is still the greatest country in the world. It’s the media and all the little snowflakes that are--

Alexis: Oh, I know! They act like the world is burning.

George: They don’t realize how good they have it. This is still the greatest country. I mean, if this was China...

Alexis: Seriously.

George: It’s their right to protest and march, I understand that, but give it a rest. Do they really think they’re going to change anything? What’re they thinking?

Alexis: Seriously, if this was China or Russia... And they’re so entitled.

George: Yes! They expect everything to just be handed to them. Where did they learn that behavior? Why do they act like that? I mean, I used to be like that, back in college, but come on, right?

Alexis: Well... they’re probably just reacting to what the previous generation stood for. They’re cynics laced with optimism. Their irony is sincere...

George: (slightly annoyed) Wow. How perceptive...

Alexis: Full disclosure: I’m technically a snowflake, but--

George: Ah. That explains so much.

Alexis: (playfully) No it doesn’t, shut up! But, admittedly, it’s difficult to defend us sometimes. I’ve had to unfollow so many friends off Facebook. Just so much negativity. I’m over it... so when’s dinner going to be ready? I’m famished.

George: Soon, soon. You’re going to love it. Oh, speaking of famines, have you heard in Africa--

Alexis: George! How can you be so glib?

George: (laughing) What, what? I’m creating ironic distance. It’s the only way I can process what’s happening there. It’s really tragic.

Alexis: You’re such a--

George: What?

Alexis: (flirtatiously) You’re so bad.

George: I know, I know. I’m the worst! But the situation in, uh, uh--

Alexis: Africa.

George: Right. The situation really has become dire. I mean, millions of, of--

Alexis: Africans.

George: People! These poor people, and children, on the brink of starvation. They’re like skeletons, walking around, eyes bulging out, flies eating their skin... It’s staggering the lack of motivation among the world’s governments to provide aid. Why don’t we help out? Why don’t we do more?

Alexis: I know.

George: I mean, if we all just got together and focused... But we don’t have any real leaders. Where are they? Where are the leaders?

Alexis: I don’t know.

George: There’s too many problems in the world. It’s--

Alexis: Overwhelming.

George: Not overwhelming. It’s just... you know?

Alexis: It’s like standing in an elevator full of people and not knowing who smells bad.

George: Uh, well--

Alexis: We really need to do more, though. I feel so bad when I throw out food. But at least we’re not like ancient Rome. They would stuff themselves silly then throw it all up just so they could eat more.

George: Actually, that’s not true. The Romans never binged and purged.

Alexis: Yes they did. They had “vomitoriums”.

George: That’s a common misperception. “Vomitoriums” were large passages that allowed amphitheater crowds to exit quickly, sort of spewing them out.

Alexis: Oh. I feel so stupid. This whole time I thought, because of the name--

George: It’s okay to be wrong, Alexis. People make that mistake all the time.

Alexis: (defensively) I know it’s okay to be wrong, George--

George: Okay, okay, relax--

Alexis: I’m just explaining, because of the name.

George: Your generation is so sensitive.

Alexis: No we’re not, shut up! Just because I’m explaining myself doesn’t mean--

George: Bunch of little snowflakes...

Alexis: You better watch yourself mister. Charm will only get you so far.

George: I’ll be careful.

Alexis: (playfully) Seriously, I’ll organize a march so fast... You know, we may not even have snow for much longer, the world the way it is. They say fifteen of the hottest years on record have occurred since the millennium. Can you believe that?

George: (sincerely) I know, I know. They say we’re already past the point of no return. Even if everyone went green tomorrow, we’re still screwed. The sea levels will rise. Florida will be underwater in a hundred years. Florida!

Alexis: I can’t believe it. No more Miami Beach. No more palm trees...

George: Actually, palms aren’t trees at all. It’s technically grass.

Alexis: (very annoyed) Another “common misperception”, I guess... Is dinner ready yet?

George: I’ll go check.

Alexis: Good idea.

George leaves.

Alexis stands up and walks to the other side of the table. She smells the chair where George was sitting, taking in big whiffs. Then she clears her throat loudly before returning to her seat.

George returns. He sits down.

Alexis: (flustered) Is it ready yet, dinner? I feel like I’ve been waiting forever.

George: It’s cooling, just a few more minutes. As they say, “Patience is a cliché”...

Alexis: What?

George: Nothing... Are you okay?

Alexis: (readjusting) Of course. Yes. Just hungry... So, are you going to tell me what’s for dinner? You’re being so mysterious.

George: You’re going to love it. It’s a delicacy, very hard to come by these days. But it does have...

Alexis: What?

George: It has meat in it.

Alexis: George... you know I’m a vegan.

George: Just hear me out.

Alexis: You know I’m a vegan, George.

George: You said you were a “practical vegan”.

Alexis: But I’ve been really bad lately. I’m trying to get back on the wagon. I really shouldn’t.

George: This is a delicacy, very hard to come by. And with the world the way it is, who knows if I can even get more of it.

Alexis: You make it sound like it’s endangered.

George: No, in fact, it’s overpopulated. It’s just the world, the way it is--

Alexis: I can’t. Eating meat is wrong and it really isn’t healthy. The leading killer in the country is heart disease. I mean, the idea of eating flesh? Eating a thing that once had a heartbeat?

George: Plants are alive. Everything we eat was once alive. If you want to survive, you have to kill... Just try a little bit, a tiny nibble. The meat is fair trade, free range, no chemicals, completely organic--

Alexis: Non-GMO?

George: All that shit. Just try a little bit.

Alexis: You’re such a bad influence, George.

George: Don’t pretend like you don’t like it.

Alexis: I can’t eat meat, I’m sorry. I hate disappointing you, but I have to commit to something. It’s not just my health--factory farms have a huge environmental impact as well. All the water the animals require and all the, you know, excrement they produce...

George: Are you not going to eat?

Alexis: I’m not going to eat the meat.

George: But the meat is the meal. If you don’t want to eat the meat, you may as well not eat at all.

Alexis: Fine. I won’t eat then.

George: Why are you acting like this?

Alexis: Why are you asking me to compromise my beliefs?

George: Your beliefs are based on practicality.

Alexis: George, I have to commit to something, otherwise I’ll never figure stuff out.

George: You have to commit tonight?

Alexis: If I don’t, I’ll just keep on, untethered, drifting off into the ether.

George: Oh my God--you really are a little snowflake, aren’t you?

Alexis: (very annoyed) What’s the big fucking deal, George?

A pause. The tension makes George laugh.

George: Come on, are you really not going to eat?

Alexis: You knew I was a vegan.

George: Honestly, I thought you were just telling people that to feel superior.

Alexis: Is that how you think of me?

George: I do it, too. Everyone does. I mean, who really gives a shit about Africa?

Alexis: I’m a good person. I care about things.

George: I know.

Alexis: I volunteer. I donate. I didn’t vote in the last election because, obviously, but other things...

George: I know, I know. Look, Alexis, you’re a great person. You inspire me. Truly. I just think you’ll really enjoy this meat. It’s a delicacy. This opportunity doesn’t comes around every day.

Alexis: I want to eat the meal, but I don’t want the meat.

George: It’s pointless without the meat. It’s like not fucking on Prom night.

Alexis: That’s a little aggressive.

George: Does that frighten you, aggression?

Alexis: When it’s sitting across the table.

George laughs.

A pause.

George: Alexis, you’re not a bad person if you eat a little meat. Honestly, it would be wasteful if you didn’t eat. It’s already cooked.

Alexis: No, George.

George: Alright. If that’s your decision, I respect that... A little misguided, but still respectable... I think you’ll regret it later, but I respect it...

Alexis: Just curious, um, what kind of meat is it? I mean, if it’s so amazing.

George: No, no, you’re committed to changing the world. I can’t possibly divulge--

Alexis: Oh, come on. What is it? Don’t tease me, George.

George: No, no, you have beliefs. I’m not going to ask you to compromise yourself.

Alexis: George, don’t tease me. Please, please, please, please tell me. What kind of delicacy...

George responds with body language and facial gestures.

Alexis: Is it... George, is it what I think it is?

George gestures again.

Alexis: Is it what I think it is, George? Huh Georgie? Please tell me. Is it...

George gestures again.

Alexis: It is? George, really!? No! Holy fuck! How did you, where did you--

George: It wasn’t easy, the world the way it is.

Alexis: Wow, I wasn’t expecting that. Have you cooked it before? What does it taste like?

George: The natives say it’s best rare, all the nutrients and antioxidants get burned up if you cook it too long. Also, we have to eat it with our hands.

Alexis: Is that a thing?

George: Yes, it’s a thing... Just try a little bit. If you don’t like it, just get drunk and watch me eat...

Alexis: Maybe a bite or two, just to say I’ve tried it...

George: Is that a yes?

Alexis: Are you sure it was ethically-sourced?

George: That’s what the guy said.

George checks his watch.

George: I’ll go grab it. Wait, before you decide...

George leaves.

Alexis stands up again. She stretches and loosens up her body and neck. She cracks her knuckles and loudly clears her throat again. Then she sits back down.

George returns with a plate of indistinguishable meat. He places it in the middle of the table. He grabs a carving knife.

George: Shall I cut you a slice?

Alexis: It does smell good.

George: I’ll cut you a slice.

Alexis: I didn’t say yes.

George: I’ll cut you a slice, just in case.

George carves up the meat. It is extremely bloody and splashes on the table. He puts a slice on two plates. He takes one to Alexis then returns to his chair with the other plate.

George digs in. He eats with his hands and moans with pleasure.

George: Wow, oh, wow, so fucking good!

Alexis: Relax, George.

George: You have to try this. Oh my God, wow! Seriously, you have to fucking try this.

Alexis: It can’t be that good.

George: So many interesting textures. Fibrous, yet tender, like a mango. Fuck, damn, wow!

Alexis: (embarrassed) You’re acting like you’re about to come.

George: Oh Alexis, if only you knew...

Alexis inspects the meat a little closer. She smells it.

Alexis: Well, I wouldn’t want to waste food. And the world, the way it is...

George: You won’t regret it.

George is nearly finished with his slice. He’s dripping with blood.

Alexis: Eating meat is still wrong. I’m not admitting to anything...

Alexis eats the meat. George attempts to wipe the blood off with a napkin.

Alexis: Jesus Christ! It’s so fucking good! Wow, I wasn’t, that’s unexpected.

She continues to eat, becoming more and more sloppy and piggish. Blood runs from her mouth down her throat.

George becomes distracted by her appetite.

George: (shocked) Christ, Jesus, you don’t have to eat so fast. Take a breath...

Alexis: Oh! So juicy...

Alexis continues to devour the meat, splashing blood everywhere.

George: (disgusted) That’s not very attractive. Maybe try a napkin...

Alexis eats and eats. When she’s done, she licks her plate clean. She’s covered in blood.

A pause.

Both characters examine the table, all the blood, and then each other.

Alexis: I’m a mess.

George: It’s hard to look at you, to be honest.

Alexis: So full, so unsatisfied. I want more, but I’m so full... but I want more...

George: Well... you know what we could do?

George gestures. Alexis responds with curious approval.

George: I’ll get the Ipecac.

 End scene.